Media, Politics

The War on Musk: Washington Post Slammed Over Twitter Hit Piece

Twitter LogoLast week, there was another bombshell story by the Washington Post on the purported evil that is Elon Musk.  Quickly amplified by MSNBC and other media, it was another hit job on Musk and could be viewed as what many in the media love to call “disinformation.” Musk himself noted that the premise of the piece (that his tweets were artificially boosted during a recent period) was demonstrably false. Yet, the countervailing facts found little space in the long Post piece. None of that is particularly surprising. Musk became a hunted man when he sought to restore free speech protections to social media. The media regularly offers him little quarter or consideration. However, what was most striking was that the underlying controversy may have been Musk’s targeting of “bots” in his restructuring of Twitter.

The Post story was written with the usual telltale signs of a hit piece. First, there was the breathless headline (notably amplified on its own Twitter account) expressing a combination of shock and scorn: “Elon Musk reinvents Twitter for the benefit of a power user: Himself.” Then came the lead line of how Musk had transformed the company into the “billionaire’s personal sandbox.” It reported how Musk ran amok at Twitter headquarters firing people in a rage over the failure to artificially boost his own tweets in the system. It portrays employees cowering from his wrath and rushing to change algorithms to increase his tweet visibility.

Musk immediately responded with a simple but seemingly major point: there was no such spike or adjustment. He tweeted “Several major media sources incorrectly reported that my Tweets were boosted above normal levels earlier this week. A review of my Tweet likes & views over the past 6 months, especially as a ratio of followers, shows this to be false. We did have a bug that briefly caused replies to have the same prominence as primary Tweets, but that has now been fixed.”

The Musk tweets do not necessarily end the controversy but it raises core factual questions that seemed to be largely omitted in the Post coverage. Indeed, it was simply ignored by media who continued to push the narrative regardless of the serious questions over the premise of the article. Sound familiar? The Russian collusion scandal, the Hunter Biden “Russian Disinformation,” the Lafayette Park “Photo Op” conspiracy, the Nick Sandmann controversy, the Jussie Smollett case, the Migrant Whipping scandal. This list seems endless of false stories where the “facts were too good to check.” However, that is not “disinformation.”  Not at all.

If you read the Post piece, it becomes clear what the real fight at Twitter may have been over. Buried in the piece is this observation: “Even before he bought Twitter, Musk emphasized the site’s need to crack down on spam and bots, particularly those shilling cryptocurrency.” The Post noted that Musk declared before buying the company that  “If our Twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!”

Musk has been riding roughshod over engineers to remove certain algorithms and combat bots to restore the company’s transparency and integrity.

Bots and AI systems, however, have a growing alliance in Washington.

Democratic leaders have called for a type of “enlightened algorithms” to frame what citizens access on the internet. In 2021, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called for algorithms to be created to protect people from their own bad choices. She was upset that people were not listening to the informed views of herself and leading experts. Instead, they were reading views of skeptics by searching Amazon and finding books by “prominent spreaders of misinformation.” She denounced Amazon and declared that “this pattern and practice of misbehavior suggests that Amazon is either unwilling or unable to modify its business practices to prevent the spread of falsehoods or the sale of inappropriate products.” She gave the company 14 days to change its algorithms to throttle and obstruct efforts to read opposing views.

More recently, Bill Gates seemed to go “full Borg” in calling for AI to stop certain views from being “magnified by digital channels.” The problem is that we allow “various conspiracy theories like QAnon or whatever to be blasted out by people who wanted to believe those things.” Gates added that AI can combat “political polarization” by checking “confirmation bias.”

So AI overlords will bring unity through forced content assimilation where, to paraphrase the Borg, “free speech is futile.”

The Post does not go to bat for bots like Gates in this piece and even acknowledges that ” it wasn’t that crypto bots weren’t a problem,” but then returns to the Musk press mosh pit.

I previously discussed how Washington has gone to war with Twitter with an alliance of political, corporate, and media interests. It has been unrelenting and includes a campaign to get companies to suspend or reduce advertising until censorship is restored. The media has kept a steady stream of hit pieces on Musk that often border on wartime propaganda.

Musk is not perfect. No one is and being a billionaire gives you a billion ways to magnify your own idiosyncrasies. However, Musk has brought a level of transparency to Twitter (and his own controversies) that is unmatched in any social media company.

I will admit to a bias in favor of Musk as a long-standing free speech advocate. I previously wrote that, despite his incredible achievements in space and transportation technology, Musk’s greatest legacy may prove his defense of free speech. His release of the Twitter Files has revealed a comprehensive system of censorship coordinated with the government. He has also restored free speech protection to a major social media platform. The move is transformative and historic.

The campaign against Musk reflects a degree of desperation as the control of social media collapsed with his purchase. If you are to control speech on social media, it must be complete and total. Musk shattered that unified front and, with it, the ability to maintain approved narratives by silencing critics and barring particular views. Elon Musk did not “reinvent” Twitter as much as restore Twitter to what it was. However, there is a reinvention of journalism in a new and more menacing image.

151 thoughts on “The War on Musk: Washington Post Slammed Over Twitter Hit Piece”

  1. Liz Warren screeching that you have 14 days to comply is enough to make all Americans appreciate that the fake Indian will never be president.

  2. Professor Turley: “The media has kept a steady stream of hit pieces on Musk that often border on wartime propaganda.”

    “Border?” These are American Maoists. It is wartime propaganda. If they get full control of the military, from cancel culture to carpet bombing is but a small step. The Cultural Revolution in China had pitched battles. It can happen here.

      1. I fear it, too, Upstate, because I’m too old to be anything more than a human sandbag 🙁

          1. Alan, I go through the world with a candle, looking for one honest Costco chicken. It’s taken so long, I need an extension cord 😉

  3. Only on the left could you have THE WASHINGTON POST calling another entity “a sandbox of a billionaire”. Self awareness seems to not be able to stick to liberals.

  5. This seems like a desperate attempt to accuse the mainstream media of what FoxNews has been caught red-handed doing and distract from the huge FoxNews scandal – spreading Dominion/election fraud their stars emailed privately agreed was a complete fabrication but continuing to promote the story on air because their gullible audience believed it.

  6. The harm caused by “forced content assimilation” and the throttling of opposing viewpoints or ideologies—(manifest in accelerated polarization and division in this country)–cannot be overstated.
    -Call it what you will, pick whatever euphemism you wish, but internal conflict and fragmentation is the goal.

  7. The Washington ComPost has descended from a mediocre paper to one that is almost pure garbage. Wokism permeates every section except for the restaurant reviews and the comic section. It is no longer a newspaper but a propaganda outlet for the leftist politics of Democratic Party. Setting aside the pathetic musings of the likes of its commentators Rubin and Milbank, the supposed fact checker, Glenn Kessler must be one of the most fraudulent practitioners of that trade. He seems to have taken upon himself the role of public relations manager for that very upstanding citizen named Hunter Biden. That recent fact check was among the most repugnant I have seen yet. There is no bottom to the abyss that this paper has fallen into over the past decade,

  8. The terrifying future predicted by Orwell and all those 1960s dystopian movies has arrived. I can’t believe we’re even having these conversations.

  9. Now that Musk controls twitter, and has all twitter employees under NDAs and severe financial penalties if they disclose anything disparaging to twitter (at least the twitter he owns now, they are free to disparage prior ownership), I cannot count him as a free speech advocate. He is far from it. A review of my Tweet likes & views over the past 6 months, especially as a ratio of followers, shows this to be false. I also cannot take him at his word that the Post story was incorrect, when he is the one doing the review and reporting back, and he has a gag order on anyone who can contradict him.

  10. “. . . story by the Washington Post on the purported evil that is Elon Musk.” (JT)

    Ever seen a fit thrown by a spoiled child that had its pacifier taken away?

    Exhibit A: WaPo.

  11. Ah yes…..”enlightened algorithms”. The Democratic party’s official start of The World Bot Crusade with Bill Gates and Elizabeth Warren as their Knights Templar. Elon Musk has done more to promote free speech in the United States with his takeover of Twitter so the Democrats have decided that he must be punished and crushed. I’ll be interested to see what probable cause the FBI gins up for their upcoming Twitter and Musk search warrants (misinformation to incite insurrection perhaps ?). Thank you, Jonathan, for an outstanding article. Much appreciated.

  12. Democratic leaders have called for a type of “enlightened algorithms” to frame what citizens access on the internet.

    For decades now, the word “enlightened” has been one of the Left’s favorite descriptors for anything they like. Don’t be fooled, much of what they call enlightened is just another word for left-wing, and are characterized more by darkness than light. OTOH, when someone like Musk opens the shades and lets sunshine expose their corruption, they wail and gnash their teeth as exemplified by this Washington Post hit piece.

    1. The left has mastered the art of using superficially appealing terms to mask grotesque actions. The latest executive order on “equity” is a case in point. This is nothing but an effort, led by Susan Rice, to deploy the full weight of the federal government to expand even further the use of racial and other preferences throughout government and society. In addition to its offensiveness, and when implemented its likely unconstitutionality, the order is payback to Democratic constituencies, and part of an effort further to entrench progressive ideologues in governmental, economic and other institutions.

      In its appropriations bills, the House should put an end to this. No funds should be permitted to be used to pay for any of this, including the salaries of any employees involved in any way in implementing the order.

      The Republicans need to stop posturing and start using the power of the purse, which they now have.

    2. A just machine to make big decisions
      Programmed by fellas with compassion and vision
      We’ll be clean when their work is done
      We’ll be eternally free, yes, and eternally young

      What a beautiful world this will be
      What a glorious time to be free
      What a beautiful world this will be
      What a glorious time to be free

      -Donald Fagen, IGY

  13. The Dem’s, Biden Admin.and the Elites (Davos/World Economic Forum and friends) seek Authoritarian control of people and free speech. They wish to impose their own ideas on the majprity. Loss of Twitter has hurt them badly. Yet they had a chance to out bid Musk but they did not. Musk is exposing their control, anti free speech. Freedoms. Now they have the Republican House investigating and shedding light, exposing them. They know they are failing so they will try and try but will FAIL

    1. It’s all about money, the ability to commandeer the machinations of government to retain the power that enables sinecures to their friends and endless spending. It’s more for the bankers, more for big oil, more for big pharm, all blatantly obvious, while generating billions in far less conspicuous profits through influence peddling. All secured on the backs of those who would otherwise object.

      The bots are still there on Twitter. It seems they’ve been loading the accounts of those who challenge with “Chinese” bot followers to make it appear the account’s been spammed. No idea who “they” are, no way to verify origination, also no idea why the Chinese would be interested in monitoring our tweets so repetitiously with hundreds of bots, or why they would spam the accounts of those who object to Biden admin and the woke narrative, unless of course, they are in fact tools of administration as another example of cultural misappropriation and perhaps this is “collusion”?

  14. The disgraceful Garbage Media is giving Musk the SAME treatment that it’s given Trump for years. It’s literally no different, even to the extent that Musk, like Trump, almost seems to INVITE the attacks, knowing that reasonable people can see what’s really happening.

    Professor Turley knows all about that kind of treatment. If he were to take his blinders off for a moment — or perhaps take advantage of Mr. Peaabody’s WayBack Machine — he might cross paths with himself back around 2017 or 2018 at this very website, when he was on the GIVING end of that sort of coverage, tag-teaming Trump along with the Professor’s buddy, Michael Avenatti, back when The Daily Beast was Professor Turley’s go-to source for stories upon which to comment, and Avenatti was the Professor’s prized former pupil, whom he buried neck-deep in accolades.

    There’s nothing that the Garbage Media is doing to Musk that they didn’t do to Trump in the past with ProfessorTurley’s assistance via echoing or magnifying the attacks on Trump by subsequently-disgraced multiple felon Michael Avenatti.

    1. They need a new Emmanuel Goldstein for their two-minutes’ hate and Trump won’t be around forever.

  15. Once again, another example of the Democratic Party and its media kissing off the principle of free speech because they know what’s best for everyone.

    1. They know what’s best for themselves, and that depends on censorship. They don’t really care if it’s best for the unwashed masses they want control over.

  16. This hit piece, among others,demonstrates the level of fear that those people have about Musk. I find it hilarious. Keep pushing the envelope Elon

    1. They fear Elon because they fear free speech. Their ideas are corrupt and cannot stand the light of day, and they know it. Their only hope lies in the censorship regime they have built, and Elon is a threat to that.

  18. The Post does not go to “bat for bots” It goes “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.” 🙂

    I used to get a good laugh at the absurd publications at the point of purchase in the grocery store. Who would buy this? Fast forward—this is the fate of legacy media.

  19. It isn’t just crypto bots. It’s bots from foreign governments, and political entities that also pose a problem. Bots that literally spread disinformation or misinformation.

    “Yet, the countervailing facts found little space in the long Post piece. None of that is particularly surprising.”

    It’s interesting that somehow Turley “doesn’t see” the irony in the fact fact his own employer Fox News ignores countervailing facts all the time.

    Musk only offers his word as evidence that the claims against him are not true. How do we know he’s being honest? Turley admits he’s biased towards Musk because of his free speech position. Clearly he’s going to be blind to some of the claims from the post and rather than truly research the post’s claims. He takes Elons word at face value. That’s not a good argument.

    1. Based on your ramblings, I find it unlikely that you watch Fox news. So it follows that you get your version of whats said on Fox from your own echo chamber (insert raspberry).
      I also doubt that Turley gets a W-2 from Fox, so stop LYING and saying that Fox is his employer.

  20. “We did have a bug that briefly caused replies to have the same prominence as primary Tweets, but that has now been fixed.”

    Riiiiight, because he’s totally honest about it after being called out in it.

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