At first glance, it looked like the sort of trash that clogs Twitter every day: Donald Trump, claimed a certain tweet on Wednesday evening, was dead, and Elon Musk was covering up the news. But this was no ordinary fake news. This was a test.
Within hours, the tweet by comedian Tim Heidecker had been liked and reposted tens of thousands of times, each repost amplifying the question Heidecker had been tacitly asking: would Twitter’s new owner act against obviously fake news, especially when it involved him?
To be fair, Musk has more important things on his mind than provocations by comedians, what with his widely mocked plan to charge suckers, sorry, I mean users $8 (R146) to have their accounts verified.
Of course, that’s already quite a discount from the $20 (R364) he was reportedly going to charge, a move which prompted horror writer Stephen King to tweet on Monday: “$20 a month to keep my blue check? F**k that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.”
King’s point is well made. Twitter’s content is produced by its users. If any money is going to start changing hands, it should go to the content providers and the huge names who draw people to the site, not billionaires handing out blue noddy badges to needy influencers.
To Musk’s fans, however, all of this is a minor sideshow. Twitter, they will tell you, has now been “freed” from the tyranny of political correctness and will soon be transformed into a place in which free speech is absolute.
They’re wrong, of course. Musk isn’t a free-speech absolutist, for two very obvious reasons.
Musk has spoken about how the world needs a digital ‘town square’ in which we can meet each other and debate important ideas ... After all, the town square was the place where people came together to listen to the latest decrees from their local overlord.
The first reason is that he’s publicly said he isn’t, reassuring advertisers that he doesn’t want the platform to become a “free-for-all hellscape”.
The second reason Musk isn’t a free speech absolutist is because nobody is. All free speech comes with certain responsibilities, both legal and societal.
I understand why Musk might not feel these restrictions particularly keenly: as the richest person in the world, he can unleash an army of lawyers (and angry fans) on any influential or powerful person who might say something nasty about him or his company. The silencing of Tesla critics is fairly well-documented by now.
You and I, however, don’t have these protections, and so we tend to pick our battles and govern our tongues, obeying social conventions to steer clear of legal ones.
Musk has spoken about how the world needs a digital “town square” in which we can meet each other and debate important ideas. It’s a slogan that’s caught on among his followers, especially those on the right who are so fond of anachronistic, nostalgic metaphors.
Inevitably, it’s been derided by in many think-pieces, but I think this is unfair. In fact, I think “town square” is an almost perfect description of where Twitter will go now that Musk has fired the people who used to moderate its content and has encouraged the mob to return.
After all, the town square was the place where people came together to listen to the latest decrees from their local overlord.
It’s where they used to gather to watch the trials of women accused of being witches, conducted by self-appointed judges who used buoyancy as evidence of sin.
It’s where they watched the burning of heretics, or the beheading of apostates, or heartily participated in the throwing of Jews down wells.
Still, I believe in freedom of speech, and I believe that, like the Trumpists who yearn for a return to a “great” America they can never quite place in history, Musk and his fans are welcome to call for their “town square”.
But there’s a good reason debates about how we think and live moved from the town square into schools, universities, courtrooms and parliaments. This stuff is complicated, and it requires people who are good at thinking.
And I’m just not sure that eight bucks for a blue tick qualifies ...
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