Twitter established a conversation between people in positions to shape the political and public imaginary – journalists, politicians, public figures – and people who would otherwise never have access to those levels of influence. Most importantly, Twitter has been instrumental in amplifying the voices, demands, and critiques of traditionally marginalized groups. That’s where it really demonstrated its democratizing potential.
So to be clear, this particular author believes that Twitter was doing the "right thing" in "amplifying the voices, demands, and critiques of traditionally marginalized groups" and obviously Musk is doing the non-benevolent thing in trying to change it. If you look close enough to this statement and the rest of the article, it will point you to the troubling aspect with the current day thinking of the mainstream liberal left.
I mean it would be one thing to suggest that you are simply aiming to "amplify" voices in general. In fact, isn't that the point of social media? I don't believe that many on the right would have any trouble with providing these marginalized people with the opportunity to speak out, criticize, or anything else. I suspect that most everyone on the right would agree that this is what a section 230 public forum is all about.
But the reality is that this amplification was created by reducing or completely removing any opposing voices. The issue has not been, is not currently, and will never be that anyone is silencing the voices of the "traditionally marginalized groups". Other than temporarily suspending a hand full of journalists and actually factchecking both sides, Elon musk has not been silencing people for providing liberal opinions. He is not banning these "traditionally marginalized groups". He simply is not censoring and banning anyone who has the audacity to disagree with them. Oh, and he is also not overriding the will of the Twitter reader by artificially pushing certain subjects as "trending" even if they were not really "trending". He is literally allowing the Twitter reader to determine what is and is not "trending". How quaint.
Herein lies the ultimate problem here. It is not enough for people on the left to be heard. But they believe it is their inherent right to be heard, while simultaneously not having to listen to anything that they do not want to hear. This was the old Twitter under Agrawal and the Gen Z gang of moderators. Working day and night to make sure "favored" voices were heard while "opposing" voices were drowned out. There is nothing "democratizing" about only allowing one side to speak, regardless of how marginalized you declare them to be. Democracy allows for and demands that all voices be heard. Not just favored voices.
But apparently this is not how this author (and many other modern liberals) view democracy. They want to live in their bubble and if they are not allowed to do so, then they simply just cannot cope with things. Moreover, they are apparently upset because Elon Musk is "hard to pin down" as it pertains to his political views and how they apparently relate to his running of Twitter. Have they stopped to consider that Musk it not trying to run Twitter as a vice for his personal politics (as the previous management was)? That perhaps he is simply trying to bring Twitter back to the glory days of actually being a free and open public forum? Oddly, such a thing doesn't appear to have occurred to them.
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