Pirate's Cove

There have been plenty of seriously scorching Hot Takes with Elon Musk buying Twitter. Lots of teeth gnashing, threats to leave Twitter, and so much more. Employees are losing their minds, you know, ones who didn’t own it before and do not own it now, ones hired to do a job, not run the company. Here’s one that’s certainly at the top of the hill

Column: With Elon Musk in charge, it’s the beginning of the end for #BlackTwitter

It’s all rather disturbing and yet somehow fitting in these doublespeak-steeped times.

Elon Musk, the founder of a company that California is suing for allegedly silencing thousands of Black employees who complained about racism, is buying a company that has given millions of Black people a megaphone-like voice to complain about racism.

And the California-hating billionaire insists he’s doing it all to protect free speech.

“Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said Monday, announcing that he had succeeded in taking over the San Francisco-based social media company for $44 billion.

Yes, as well as debating some really stupid stuff, along with lots of other things, like sports, music, arts, etc. It’s basically a chat room.

Consider this the beginning of the end of #BlackTwitter.

Not of Black people on Twitter but of #BlackTwitter — the community of millions that figured out how to turn a nascent social media platform into an indispensable tool for real-world activism, political power and change.

Huh? The column points out all the hashtags and movements from black twitter, which are apparently real world stuff, you know

On Monday, the mood on #BlackTwitter was neither magical nor joyful.

“There goes #BlackTwitter — new owners will call it CRT and ban it.”

“Um… #BlackTwitter we need to schedule a meeting ASAP! Where we meeting up when we leave Twitter?”

“So, where’s the back of Twitter? Asking for #BlackTwitter”

“It was nice getting to know you all. Especially everyone on #BlackTwitter. Now a white South African man owns it. Bye Y’all. #RIPTwitter”

Huh? They’ll have exactly the same free speech and ability to tweet. But, you know, it’s the 21st Century, and each new year means people are more apoplectic and doomy than the last. But, see, they’re worried about content moderation being reduced, and even allowing some people booted for Wrongthink, perhaps some who deserved it, those people accused of being white supremacists (some are, some are just accused because it’s easy to accuse and abuse), back on Twitter. People know they can ignore them, right? Can block and mute? They don’t have to follow.

Perhaps more troubling, conspiracy theories could become easier to find and share and, therefore, grow in complexity and number of believers.

We’ve already seen the effects of disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and of QAnon, including the latest tall tales linking gender identity to pedophilia that are being echoed by reckless Republican politicians. What happens when those conspiracy theories, bolstered by more than a dash of white supremacy, escalate into violence? It happened once; it can surely happen again.

Oh, you mean like the coordinated violence we’ve seen from BLM and Antifa? If “groomer” is a conspiracy theory then why do we see tweets showing Dems are supporting teaching young children adult sexual issues?

#BlackTwitter also knows that, no, that’s not what free speech means, because Twitter is a company — soon to be privately held — and has no obligation under the 1st Amendment to allow racism, transphobia, homophobia or misogyny to percolate through its platform.

Under that definition, black twitter would be booted, because they are advocating racism and violence against white people. They haven’t, because the rules have been applied inconsistently.

“I don’t think that you’re going see the same sort of replication of a Twitter-like climate or #BlackTwitter on another platform. I don’t think you’ll ever get that lightning in a bottle back,” Clark said. “But I do think that you will see Black people doing what we have always done. And that is bend communication and other technologies to our needs and our will. And find ways to thrive in those various areas of the internet.”

Or, you can wait and see what happens. Which will most likely be no changes to black twitter. But, this is 2022, and people have to make themselves Victims before anything happens. They have to manufacture issues. They have to caterwaul. Complain.