After the chat between Elon Musk and Donald Trump on X, several columnists and observers realized and said that social media platforms are not neutral: this notation is trivial but they shown dishonesty pointing it out only now. The reason why they took so long to admit that social media are not neutral is that Musk broke the left’s monopoly on them, allowing non-progressives to express their views online more freely.
Once upon a time…
It’s useful taking a step back: when Facebook knew its first period of worldwide diffusion, liberals were the only ones to use massively the new tool – in appearance unmediated – to the point that Facebook was considered the key element of Obama’s victory in 2008. For a few years, the left almost monopolized it, partly due to the inability of its opponents to use it effectively. This was evident in both the U.S. and Europe.
When the right became much better
The situation has changed radically since 2015: the non-progressive learnt well and quickly the main techniques and strategies for using social media successfully to create impactful content that could influence public discourse. The left lost its exclusivity in creating virality through posts, infographics and memes, while the right became much better at mastering social media and creating waves to catch. This was true on all main social networks but Twitter, which progressives would never stop considering their domain.
First attempt to regain control
Anyway, the left’s egemony on social media was over around that time, so progressives began to look for some strategy to bring back social media under their own control: it’s no coincidence that notions like “post-truth,” “fake news,” and “fact-checking” were developed during those years. The strategy is simple: claiming that too many people “functionally illiterate” believe in hoax shared on social media and it is mandatory to prevent and contrast this, so it is necessary that someone, the “debunker”, explains them why the outrageous meme they shared was based on a false claim and why they are “functionally illiterate”.
Every person that uses internet and social media know that hoaxes exist since always, so it’s hard to believe that fake news became a serious question only after the rising on the right on social media and it’s still harder to believe that fake news and hoaxes are related only to the non-progressive. The truth is that behind the noble intent of fighting misinformation there was an attempt to regain control of the online narrative by arguing that a referee was needed, but very soon it became clear to anyone paying attention that debunkers, on average, weren’t neutral referees but played for one side: they arbitrarily choose what is necessary to verify and what is not, they don’t share their evaluation criteria and non-progressives are their target more often than progressives.
This first attempt to regain control of the online narrative failed miserably, as shown by two of the most surprising electoral outcomes in at least the last fifty years: Brexit and Donald Trump‘s victory, which happened despite traditional media’s efforts to support Remain and Hillary on one side, while professional debunkers guarding the web on the other. By the way: any debunkers or fact-checker, neither in 2016 nor in the following years, debunked the false Russiagate dossier on Trump concocted by Hillary.
The escalation
The battle on social media was lost, so the left changed its strategy: raise the stakes and resort to censorship. After testing the waters during the pandemic, the real escalation occurred during the 2020 U.S. presidential elections: platforms officially adopted fact-checkers, even creating internal task forces and altering the algorithms to favor one candidate and disadvantage the other.
Social media showed their non-neutrality and biased position brazenly: they went so far as to censor a damaging New York Post story about Hunter Biden, Joe Biden‘s son, blocking the possibility to share and label it claiming it as false, or rather, as Russian propaganda; moreover, Twitter even banned the newspaper from the platform. According to a poll, 79% of people believe that a truthful cover of the story would have changed the election, allowing a second Trump’s victory.
Instead, once it was clear that Donald Trump was out of the White House, they decided to silence his voice on social media, accusing him of plotting the Capitol Hill riot in an attempt to stage a coup, inciting violence and hatred. Look at the difference: Facebook and Twitter decided to interdict Trump due to his incitation to violence and hatred, but they did absolutely nothing during summer 2020 to block the violent and hateful protests from the Black Lives Matter movement, which several America’s cities were laid waste to: on the contrary, social media executives coddled that movement.
Moreover, when Trump supporters started to move on an alternative platform, Parler, anticipating the censorship following Trump’s ousting, that platform was silenced by Big Tech: Amazon cancelled its server contract and Google removed Parler app from the Play Store. In the end, regaining control of the social media narrative required the direct intervention of social media executives, who were almost all of progressive orientation.
Musk’s arrival
And so we come to the present day: Elon Musk acquires Twitter, renames it X, fires about 80% of the employees, and kicks off a remarkable transparency operation by revealing what had been done in terms of censorship by the old management between 2019 and 2021: the so-called Twitter Files were published the real and supposed conspiracy theorists were right: the censorship was real, regularly carried out within Twitter, and it’s reasonable to imagine similar mechanisms for other platforms as well. The previous content policy was scrapped, and Musk decided to re-admit Donald Trump on X, even though the former U.S. president wouldn’t return to the platform until last Monday, when Musk hosted Trump for a conversation.
That’s the reason why liberals and progressives are angry with Musk: X is considered the social network with more influence on people who matter or with some degree of public visibility at least, and that’s why the progressive world love(d?) it so much. With Musk’s acquisition, the revelation of censorship activities, the subsequent policy changes and Trump’s reinstatement, Musk took away their favorite toy: X is no longer their own backyard, that place where they could preach to the choir and bask in self-admiration. This is something Musk cannot be forgiven for, even though Elon was once their ally until just a moment ago.
When Musk was adored
Musk was adored by progressives until he acquired Twitter: he openly admitted to smoking marijuana, had children through surrogacy, has been one of Silicon Valley’s most relevant figures for over twenty years, and was the first to invest in the electric car business, but now all of this is now forgotten because he committed the cardinal sin: Musk broke the solid Big Tech wall surrounding the progressive world, restoring a bit of neutrality in social media handling and guaranteeing free speech with his actions.
The columnists and commentators who criticized Musk for hosting Donald Trump on X aren’t credible in claiming the lack of neutrality due to Musk’s actions, because, as shown, their issue is not the neutrality but they realized that their favorite social platform was no longer a progressive stronghold, unless the meaning of “neutrality” coincides with liberal and progressive opinions according to them.
Musk didn’t bring extremism to social media; he didn’t incite hatred and revolts despite both the British government and the European Commission accusing Musk of these. He simply gave a voice on a social platform to those who, in progressive view, shouldn’t have one. It doesn’t matter whether he’s doing it for personal reasons or out of a love for freedom of speech and thought: we should all be grateful to someone who has decided to make one of the main online arenas a bit more fair and accessible to everyone, despite the tremendous pressures he ‘s facing and will continue to face in the coming months.