The “saviour of free speech” is cracking down on criticism of Israel’s genocide, writes Jonathan Cook.
Elon Musk, CEO of X, center, with attendees at a U.K. AI conference at Bletchley Park in 2023. (Rory Arnold / No 10 Downing Street, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
By Jonathan Cook
Jonathan-Cook.net
Many users of X, formerly Twitter, seem deeply misguided. They imagine that Elon Musk is the saviour of free speech. He’s not. He is simply the latest pioneer in monetising speech. Which isn’t the same thing at all.
All the blue ticks on X — mine included — are buying access to an audience. Which is why Musk has made it so easy to get a blue tick — and why there are now so many of them on the platform. If you don’t pay Musk, the algorithms make sure you get minimal reach. You are denied your five seconds of fame.
That has particularly infuriated corporate journalists. On what used to be called Twitter, they got access to large audiences as a natural right, along with politicians and celebrities. They never paid a penny. They felt entitled to those big audiences because they already enjoyed similarly big audiences in the “legacy media.” They did not see why they should start competing with the rest of us to be heard.
The new media system was rigged, as the old media system has been for centuries, to ensure that it was their voices that counted. Or rather it was the voices of the ultra-wealthy paying their salaries who counted.
Independent journalists, including myself, have been some of the chief beneficiaries of Musk’s X. But I don’t for a minute make the mistake of thinking Musk is really in favour of my free speech — or anyone else’s — compared to his own.
A reminder that free speech in America is special and we need to do everything possible to preserve it https://t.co/yAvX1TpuRp
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 19, 2024
Being able to buy yourself an audience isn’t what most people understand as free speech.
Musk’s X is simply the latest innovation on the traditional “free speech” model from the bad old days. Then, only a handful of very rich men could afford to buy themselves lots of hired hands, known as journalists; own a printing press; and be in a position to attract advertisers.
Billionaires paid a small fortune to buy the privilege of “free speech.” As a result, they managed to secure for themselves a very big voice in a highly exclusive market. You and I can now pay a hundred bucks a year and buy ourselves a very, very small voice in a massively overcrowded, cacophonous marketplace of voices.
The point is this: Speech on X is still a privilege — it’s just one that you can now pay for. And like all privileges, it is on licence from the owner. Musk can withdraw that privilege — and withdraw it selectively — whenever he thinks someone or something is harming his interests, whether directly or indirectly.
Musk is already disappearing opinions, either ones he doesn’t like or ones he cannot afford to be seen supporting — most visibly, anything too critical of Israel.
As I said earlier this week, “decolonization”, “from the river to the sea” and similar euphemisms necessarily imply genocide.
Clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of service and will result in suspension. https://t.co/1fCFo5Lezb
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 17, 2023
He has threatened users with suspension for repeating slogans such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — in other words, for calling for an end to what the judges of the World Court recently decreed to be Israel’s apartheid rule over Palestinians. He is also against hosting on X the term “decolonisation” in reference to Israel, claiming perversely that “it implies a Jewish genocide” — itself an implicit admission that Israelis (not Jews) have long been colonising Palestine and ethnically cleansing Palestinians.
The Israel lobby is also pushing hard for a ban on the words “Zionism” and “Zionist.” It won’t be long before X, like Meta, cracks down on these terms too.
Note that banning these words makes it all but impossible to discuss the specific historical forces that led to Israel’s creation at the expense of the Palestinian people, or analyse the ideology that today underpins Israel’s efforts to disappear the Palestinian people, or explain how the West has been complicit in Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories for decades and is currently aiding the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
The loss of “Zionist” and “Zionism” from our lexicon would be a serious handicap for anyone trying to explain some of the major events unfolding in the Middle East at the moment. Which is precisely why the establishment, and Musk, are so keen to see such words discredited.
Expect to see Musk’s X getting a lot more censorious over the next months and years, especially against what he is terming the “faaaaaar left” — that is, disparate groups of people he has lumped together who hold opinions either he doesn’t like personally or that can damage his business interests.
From the standpoint of the faaaaaar left, this platform is far right, but it’s actually just centrist https://t.co/PUNAvdTKQS
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2024
Billionaires aren’t there to protect free speech. They got to be billionaires by being very good at making money — by seizing markets, by inflating our appetite for consumption, and by buying politicians to rig the system to protect their empires from competitors.
Musk understands that the only people against a world based on rapacious profit and material greed are the “faaaaaar left”. Which is why the “faaaaaar left” are in the crosshairs of anyone with power in our rigged system, from the centrists to the right wing, from “liberals” to conservatives, from Blue to Red, from Democrats to Republicans.
The right and the centrists disagree only on how best to maintain that rapacious, consumption-driven, environmentally destructive status quo, and on how to normalise it to different segments of the public. They are competing wings of a system designed by a single ruling cabal.
[Related: Vijay Prashad: The Far Right of a Special Type]
I am willing to serve pic.twitter.com/BJhGbcA2e0
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2024
Musk used to see himself as a liberal and now leans towards the Trumpian right. Trump used to see himself as a Clintonian Democrat but now sees himself as… well, fill in the blank, according to taste.
The point is that centrists and the right are, in essence, interchangeable — as should be only too clear from the rapid shift of free-speech liberals towards authoritarian censorship, and the rapid (pretend) reinvention of conservatives from moralising guardians of family values to the embattled defenders of free speech.
Neither’s posturing should be taken at face value. Both are equally authoritarian, when their interests are threatened by “an excess of democracy.” Their apparent differences are simply the competition for dominance within a system that’s been gerrymandered to their mutual benefit. We are their dupes, buying into their games.
JUST IN: ?? ?? Emmanuel Macron's Liberal MEP threatens to shut down X in Europe .
"If Elon Musk does not comply with the European rules on digital services, the EU Commission will ask the continental operators to block X or, in the most extreme case, force them to completely… pic.twitter.com/8rbt4pjSPp
— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) August 20, 2024
The two tribes are there to offer the pretence of a battle of ideas, of competition, of choice at election time, of freedom. They look hostile to each other, but when push comes to shove they are united in their support for oligarchy, and opposition to genuine free speech, to real democracy, to meaningful pluralism, to an open society.
The “faaaaaar left” are the true enemy of both the centrists and the right. Why? Because they are the only group struggling for a society in which money doesn’t buy privilege, where speech isn’t something someone can own.
That’s why, when Musk intensifies his crackdown, it will be the “faaaaar left” that’s erased so completely you won’t notice it’s gone. You won’t remember it was ever there.
Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist. He was based in Nazareth, Israel, for 20 years. He returned to the U.K. in 2021.He is the author of three books on the Israel-Palestine conflict: Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish State (2006), Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (2008) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (2008). If you appreciate his articles, please consider offering your financial support.
This article is from the author’s blog, Jonathan Cook.net.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Cook writes “That’s why, when Musk intensifies his crackdown, it will be the “faaaaar left” that’s erased so completely you won’t notice it’s gone. You won’t remember it was ever there.”
I think it is worse than this. The left that I remember — a left that defined itself by its determination to liberate the populace from the economic exploitation of monied classes — disappeared from public discourse decades ago. Musk & Co. are just mopping up.
I cannot help myself. I simply have to go here with my comment.
I am of the belief that what is presented here by Mr. Cook is a brilliant argument to attack the SCOTUS ruling on the Citizens United case. A ruling I have commented on many times as being the most damaging act, a grand boondoggle, any very activist court SCOTUS ever contrived.
Money is not and cannot be the same as free speech.
This opinion seems to fall of deaf ears which puzzles me.
Which brings me back to Mr. Cook’s article here. Billionaires and free speech, seems to be an oxymoron . What a fantastic concept he uses that exposes the SCOTUS error, a power grabbing activist SCOTUS overreach for the super wealthy, He does however fail to tie to the aforementioned SCOTUS “crucifixtion” of said free speech. Not to mention the courts bullshit reasoning in the courts interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.
Seems to me Mr. Cook’s piece here brilliantly exposes the destruction of the individual right to engage in “free speech. By Mr. Cook’s words here this destruction is obviously a very real thing and is perfect example of the damage to the individuals right to said free speech. Is that court ruling an “idea” that now fails on it’s own merits.
Actually the NSA monitoring of all global traffic on phones and the internet. Realistically the practice not only invades the personal privacy of the individual it does so by placing limits on the individuals use of “free speech”.
I would really appreciate seeing some thoughts from others on this topic.
I’ll see you all in the funny papers!
I see it now, should have read.
Actually the NSA monitoring of all global traffic on phones and the internet, realistically is a practice that not only invades personal privacy of the individual, but is done by placing limits on the individuals use of “free speech”.
I should ad at this juncture the use of billionaire money as witnessed here becomes a gag of shorts on individual free speech.
Great point by Mr. Cook ” . . . where speech isn’t something someone can own.” A very valid point the worthless SCOTUS ignored.
By your silence you are guilty too!!!
Musk is sketchy at best, with a huge ego. Not someone I admire.
“The heart is the marketplace.”
W/o a doubt, by a simple twist of fate, “an important or far reaching influence on the future,” Elon Musk, RFKJr., Tulsi Gabbard plus “many people” are “home” w/the “Trumpian right;” or wrong?!? Basically, it’s “advantage” Trump-Vance. Concluding, the Musk, Kennedy, Gabbard “intervention” rockets Trump’s-Vance’s people & technological “bandwidth.”
No doubt, “where a donkey falls is slippery ground,” i.e Biden’s-Harris’-Walz’ bandwidth is shallow, hollow, basically, manufactured, i.e., TikTok Influencers, MSMedia, TV Panels & Press. Biden’s-Harris’ Cabinet, M.I.C., Congress, DNC willfully, $elling “Kamala” is the “New” Orange! “No Malarky!!!” Kamala is estranged from HER other half. Busted! Bankrupt!! Kamala’s 3.5 year “We did it, Joe!” charade, is Done & Dusted!!! It’s over. Biden-Harris, the political corpse posing as POTUS masquerading as human is history, However, Biden-Harris “lives!” Walzing the Nation into WW3. No one is safe. No one is exempt. The Party of Wars, is in, The House.
“The [OTHER] point(s): 1) “X” is a privately owned $ocial Media Platform for public use w/fees, restrictions, rewards, repercussions. 2) “Use @ Your Own Risk.” 3) Dine-In & Take-Away, one or all “$entiments,” pissed, kissed or dissed.
No doubt, ever since, that cowboy from Texas, started his own war in Iraq, imo, the center, right & “faaaaaar left” has been financing the deception, destruction, death by U$Presidents 40-46, from sea to shining sea, from the West Bank of Jordan to the Gaza Strip, from Syria to Somalia, in the Middle East, Far East, & Ukraine. The near & “faaaaaar left” has been whitewashing, sugar-coating, covering-up Biden’s-Harris’ reality, complicity, his/her story. Imo, all their truth is one big f/lie! No One, Is Exempt. No One, Is Safe. “The $ystem is broke! The System has been bought & paid for!!!”
“Cognitive computing is about partnering between machines and humans, combining their strengths to solve big problems.” *Now that we have technologies that help us think, “we” need a government that’s designed to act,” i.e., “Accomplishment of purpose is better than making a profit.”
TY, Jonathan Cook, CN. “Keep It Lit!”
* hxxps://qz.com/876008/why-watson-should-have-run-for-us-president-smart-algorithms-are-better-than-dumb-politicians
….. p.s., Years, ago, the “other” X, Malcolm, said, “You don’t stick a knife in a man’s back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you’re making progress.”
“TRUE progress would mean complete removal of the knife, signifying the total eradication of systemic oppression and injustice.” The Democrats’, center, right, near & “faaaaaar left” + Congress’, progress is a cheap fake. However, the “knife” in our back, is NOT. Biden-Harris, like vipers, assume the colors of their surroundings. IMO, itsa dirty, grubby, bloody Viper Pit!!!
“When the last king of Hollywood [$pielberg’s #44] shatters his glass on the floor; &, orders another, [Harris-Walz]; [We] “wonder what he did that for. That’s when [we] know, [we] have been there, BEFORE,” [suckered, duped, screwed]!!!
So” [we] “gave up our seat @ the bar; &, [we] head for the door.”
“Buh-bye, Big “D.” R.I.P., Biden’s-Harris’ CDC, Center of Democrats’ Control. IMO, in bed w/the U$G. Hence, the CDC’s “Blinken” $ign, bleating, bleating, bleating “JOY.” But, it’s seriously gloom & doom born outta the multiple crises that ensure “power” is kept Centralized, Consolidated, Controlled under Biden-Harris-Walz.
It’s always been the DNC’s Project 2020-2024. Big “D” Democrats collaborating w/the USG’s M.I.C., Congress, Donors. The “joy” of living & dying in a f.u.b.a.r., $ociety, broadcast universally,. “The UNIVERSE loves a drama, you know; &, Ladies & Gentlemen, this is the $how,” JRBeware, $election Election 2024, “An Act of Mind Control.”
“I don’t believe, we were born to beeeeee, sheep in a flock, to pantomime prayers,” [Four Mo’ Years] “with the hands of a clock.” Just “say,” No More, DNC! “Keep your dirty, grubby, bloody hands, to yourself.” TY. Ciao.
* “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby,” Adam Duritz w/Counting Crows
I just did a search on X “from the river to the sea” and I scrolled through 100 recent tweets, I’m sure there are thousands if not tens of thousands. The first tweet that I found was here: hxxps://x.com/wallacemick/status/1827745721627345133
It has a photo of Mick Wallace and the following text:
Mick Wallace
@wallacemick
Stop the Genocide. We need an end to the Zionist Settler Colonial Project – The Palestinians should be free from the River to the Sea…
##ForzaToro…
The Crisis/Excess of Democracy (a MUST view)
This post also contains vital info in a link 4th paragraph from the bottom within quotation marks: “an excess of democracy.” It’s to a previous post (June 18th) by Jonathan Cook that contains Noam Chomsky’s reflections on the Trilateral Commission, formed in the ’70s as a reaction to the ’60s-early ’70s activism seen as dangerous.
Thus the Commission’s report is titled “The Crisis of Democracy.” Notice it isn’t a crisis FOR, which would imply democracy is threatened. But rather OF, meaning that democracy IS the problem. Chomsky points out that (corporate) business is never mentioned because as the basic norm, it doesn’t need to be.
At the foundational meeting were Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, and Andrew Young. Obviously a glimpse into the neoliberal elite that had just taken over the U.S. Democratic party. So then before Reagan and trickle up, before the Rs purged their own progressives who then held office. The rightward march of the D party enabled the Rs to go far, far right.
As for the U.K.–Thatcher. The story for Labour much like the U.S. Dems. Starmer became a member of the Trilateral commission. Corbyn and Bernie Sanders were no more “extreme” than their parties were traditionally, but their co-opted parties could not tolerate any deviation from the corporate econ status quo.
The Chomsky bit also shows the Chicago (Econ) School’s Milton Friedman. Who was an advisor to Chile’s Pinochet because in Friedman’s opinion the market is more efficient under a dictatorship. That’s the dream of the uniparty–a unipolar world made safe for capitalism and a “natural elite.”
The New Deal was bad enough; the great convergence during the 1999 anti-WTO “Battle of Seattle” was intolerable. (see Quinn Slobodian’s books) So then hack off the healthy limbs of democracy and render it a basket case. A passively viewed source of amusement for fans of horror.
Both the Left and the Right want to censor Truth. We can’t have the citizenry well informed now can we? Truth is treason in America, and only the truly courageous will seek out Truth.
I agree with the points raised in the article and the comments.
In larger context: Elon Skum is a symptom of the corrupt, diseased society that he has been rewarded by. He and his companies have received many billions in subsidies, tax breaks, and fat contracts from the US gov. Just like fellow oligarchs Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates et al. they are social parasites. Other parasites like Peter Thiel, Larry Fink and the Financial Oligarchy are also behind the scenes pillaging and looting the economy. The distribution of income and wealth gets worse by the week, pretty soon these f-ers will control everything.
Disgustingly, these oligarchs are called “donors” “philanthropists”, “brilliant minds” by the sycophant-stenographers in the MassMediaCartel – of course the MassMedia is OWNED by the oligarchy! Sadly, many people have been conditioned into a Medieval Peasant mindset where they bow down to the NeoFeudal Techno-totalitarian overlords, instead of marching them to a guillotine.
IMO, the entire oligarchy should be destroyed, .
Spot on comment !
Kudos to Jonathan Cook and CN for writing/publishing this excellently cogent insight into the underpinning pseudo-intelligence motivating Musk’s claim to be a champion of free speech.
As Usual,
EA
More like Eloi Musk. HG Wells was right about the Eloi and the Morlock, except he didn’t have to travel 600,000 years into the future to see them. Only 100 years after his time and after just 40-odd years of neoliberalism the elitists have achieved their divide, and if they get their way then in a few more years they won’t have to drive the rest of us underground, they can just kill us.
Good point about ‘monetized free speech’!
While I have to admit to spending NO time on social media (if I need to get uninformed opinions and questionable ‘facts’, I can always drop into a local bar and listen to the conversation for 10 or 15 minutes), I have been following some YouTube channels that are highly critical of Musk (notably ‘thunderfoot001’ and ‘commonsenseskeptic’) with strong factual info, and it’s certainly sounds like ’X’ isn’t long for this world. Musk was forced to buy Twitter after he made a frivolous offer that the SEC subsequently ruled was a valid, contractual order, resulting in Musk paying ~$42B for a struggling company whose market value was estimated to be only ~$10B! Then he fired much of the staff and lost advertisers (who didn’t want their company associated with some of the more controversial views on ‘X’ that had previously been deleted by the now-fired staff), which won’t be replaced by the minor $8/month charged for the blue checks. Musk had to take out loans to pay for Twitter, and now the Tesla vehicle sales are in a slump, so he’s ‘going down the tubes’…
Musk is a stupid, rich wanker. End of story. He’ll go down in infamy (if anyone is around to read about him) like donald dump.
I don’t pay for the blue checks. Full stop.
Agreed! The price of such a shallow view of reality speaks volumes, much akin to skivvy stains.
As Usual,
EA
Musk is a deranged egomaniac. All billionaires are extreme narcissists. That is what happens when you are allowed to accumulate billions, or hundreds of billions of dollars, you think you are much, much better than ordinary people. In fact, you just become a raving, authoritarian idiot, like Musk. Musk loves to demean and censor, right up there with the rest of the billionaires, who can’t stand hearing other narratives than their own. Unlike regular people, billionaires have the money required to amplify their own speech while silencing those they disagree with.
Anyone who thought Elon would be a free-speech savior was being foolhardy and ignorant.
Every time I happen to see in the news his whereabouts he’s either genuflecting to Netanyahu or kissing Benny Shapiro’s derriere.
If I remember correctly, didn’t Jesus say that it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven? He was ever so right.
Excellent work.
Thank you Jonathan Cook. You would think that by now this stuff would be glaringly obvious to a mass majority of the public. Credit is due to the oligarchic propaganda machine that this isn’t the case. Not even close. What will it take? I shudder to think.
The mass majority of the public are “asleep at the wheel”. (And they have been since the MSM took over. Courtesy of “Big Brother”.)
Agreed.
Can’t assume the masses are stupid. If so, they wouldn’t listen to some self-appointed vanguard, either.
It’s more than sleepy, passive unawareness; it’s deliberate. It’s denial. It’s a refusal to see. Because if they did, what then?
Dissent is not a great way to keep a good job, necessary to support a family. I remember my younger relatives in their blame-the-Boomers phase as to why the ecological crises. Now they live in McMansions, drive SUVs, and have reproduced–as if none of that impacts the planet. But the cost of opting out of the econ system is poverty.
Like almost everyone else, I have Fox “news” fans in the family. People who want neat explanations for what’s wrong, people deeply unsettled by nuance, uncertainty, or ambiguity.
Dems similar. For decades I’ve asked D loyalists if they support neolib economics that considers devastation of human and natural resources to be irrelevant externalities. Replies? Deflection or ad hominem. Then add the current administration’s neocons, propping up unipolar empire with endless wars. So ignore your sense organs; hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. The only way it could make sense to “vote for the lesser of two evils.”
The 1/10th of 1% are used to buying anything they want, including private armies and public elections. They think they can ride it out in their mega yachts and safe property. Doing anything really effective environmentally would be way too costly and would seriously disrupt global economics. On we go…
What will it take? When economic and ecological collapse become overwhelmingly obvious. Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2020 eco sci-fi book //The Ministry for the Future// is looking less and less like fiction and more and more like an accurate forecast.
Makes me appreciate CN even more.
Thank you Jonathan for bringing to the fore yet another billionaire, Elon Musk, who just wants to control the narrative for all of our lives on this planet so he can get richer…