1. Elon Musk owns the company and has the right to do what he wants
with it (within the law).

If he wants to come up with flimsy pretexts to suspend critics, he can
do that. There's not much point to examining the rationale he uses to
backfill his whims.

2. Musk's initial statements about wanting to control Twitter to keep
it nonpartisan and uphold "free speech," which he defined as all
speech permitted by law, have since given way to urging users to vote
for Republicans and suspending critics for annoying him.

3. That's his right! But also, Twitter advertisers and other business
partners should keep that in mind when they consider any other
promises he makes to them. So should Twitter users and governments
concerned about, say, privacy and data security.

4. The previous Twitter leadership had lots of flaws. But I don't
think users had much reason to be concerned about whether it might
release their DMs for political purposes, as Musk supporter Tucker
Carlson has urged him to do.

5. If you're, say, a Chinese dissident living in exile who uses
Twitter for activism, you've also been given little reason to feel
comfortable.

Matthew Gertz @MattGertz
Dec 14
I wonder what would happen if the Chinese government asked Elon Musk
for this guy's DMs. https://wsj.com/articles/chinese-tweeter-in-exile-ran-one-man-news-hub-on-protests-11670958834

6. I don't want to parse Musk's motives or whether there's a plan. But
it does seem like the **effect** of doing a lot of lib-owning and
rants about the woke mind virus is that it buys him critical support
from the GOP.

7. Musk's Twitter isn't paying bills and seems to be ignoring a
privacy consent order with the FTC. Tesla is in lots of regulatory hot
water. The House GOP could end up functioning as a shield protecting
him from the law.

8. Users may find this situation intolerable. But as @ThePlumLineGS
points out, getting mad online about it doesn't help:

Greg Sargent @ThePlumLineGS

Musk's banning of journalists again shows that we need to update our understanding of his playbook. He's waging a form of right wing
information warfare. The display of domination over journalistic
enemies is the key thing here.

Free article on this idea:
https://wapo.st/3W3wIS1

https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status/1603749285715140609

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