I thought @elonmusk’s interview with @andrewrsorkin was one of the great interviews ever. Musk is a free speech absolutist which I respect. I think he is entirely correct that he and @X are treated unfairly and inconsistently by advertisers.
@tiktok_us@instagram@facebook and others have enormous amounts of problematic content, antisemitic and otherwise, but the advertisers don’t boycott those platforms.
Musk is targeted because the other media organizations view @X as a competitor and any time his name is in an article about controversies, it draws clicks. MSM is incentivized to attack him as it actually drives attention to their sites and therefore more revenues. It is these attack articles by other media organizations that put pressure on the @Disney’s of the world to stop advertising on X.
If Bob Iger would carefully examine the facts, he would likely continue to advertise on X, but Disney caves to public pressure rather than do the right thing. Meanwhile Disney invests heavily on TikTok, likely alongside videos of kids teaching other teenagers to be anorexic and worse. I am sure Nelson Peltz can fix this when he joins the Disney board.
X presents the opportunity for advertisers to access an incredible global audience that is not available elsewhere. And it is cheap compared to other alternatives because of current circumstances.
On Musk and antisemitism:
After examining the facts, it was clear to me that Musk did not have antisemitic intent when he responded with the ‘actual truth’ tweet, and further clarified thereafter.
I thought he made what he meant extremely clear in the @andrewrsorkin interview, namely, that Jews are drawn to support ‘oppressed’ groups and causes through various non-profits due to our history of being an oppressed minority.
Musk points out correctly that a number of these organizations and their members support Hamas. And he is correct in saying that Jews should rethink support for organizations that seek their elimination.
Many Jews are doing that right now.
To use a Muskism, Earth is fortunate that @X is owned by an individual that is largely insulated from financial and other influence. That said, perhaps some form of very carefully governed trust would be a better forever owner than any individual.
@PershingSqFdn invested in the Twitter privatization in support of free speech. Whether we make a profit on our investment is not important to us as we never intend to sell our interest.
I am more inclined to like and support companies that advertise on the platform because I appreciate their support for free speech. I have actually bought products I learned about from ads on @X. I can’t think of another example of my responding to direct advertising other than on X.
Unfortunately, recent (and society’s long-term experience) with non-profit governance, see @OpenAI, certain private universities etc. should not give anyone confidence that a traditional non-profit would be a better owner of X than Musk.
Perhaps some day the ownership of X should be distributed to each American, one share for each American during their lives and one for each person born, with a charter which permanently vests the free speech principles by which it operates.
Until then, we all should be grateful that X is owned by Musk.
Who Cares if #MaverickCarter bet with an "Illegal Bookie?" Nearly every male I know over 30 has bet with a bookie. I guess the only way for #WaPo to "get clicks" is to mention @KingJames & @mavcarter#LeBronJames
https://t.co/JPJwH4zQeD
Don’t Do Unto Others What We Would Have Done to Them?
Once more, it gets even creepier how the projectionist Left is daily still shrieking about impending Trump “revenge” and “rage”, or about Trump’s purported enemies lists to come, or about his planned weaponization of the bureaucracies. The fear is in direct proportion to Biden cognitive decline, sinking polls, and walls-are-closing-in family corruption.
Should we laugh or cry about the transparent hypocrisy?
After all, who tried to wreck an administration with a 22-month-long Russian “collusion” fraud, suppressed a laptop with the lie it was Russian “disinformation”, or impeached a president for a phone call correctly identifying the Biden family’s operation in Ukraine as utterly corrupt and at the expense of U.S. interests?
Do we recall that the Obama-Biden nexus—from 2009-17, and from 2021 until now—cemented the reputation of FBI as a partisan operation, rebooted the Pentagon as an agent of woke change ferreting out “white rage” and “white privilege”, reinvented the DOJ as a Biden family protection service, politicized the CIA so that it, along with the FBI, interfered in the 2016 and 2020 elections, and warped the IRS by suppressing evidence of Biden family tax fraud?
What Lois Lerner, Eric Holder (self-identified as Obama’s “wingman”), and Loretta Lynch left undone was taken up by Merrick Garland.
Does the New York Times, or Joe Scarborough or any of these strange pundits raging about Trump rage to come remember how the “Logan Act” farce was used to destroy Michael Flynn?
Or the Foreign Policy essay of Rosa Brooks, a former Obama-era Pentagon lawyer, about how to drive out Trump without waiting for the 2020 election, by either impeachment, the 25thAmendment—or a military coup?
How about the “kill Trump” porn that saw celebrities, actors, and academics envisioning decapitating, stabbing, shooting, exploding, or incinerating the orange man?
How about Anonymous’s confessions about how fellow bureaucrats were trying to undermine and sabotage the operations of the Trump administration from within? Or the Pentagon’s retired 4-stars calling for Trump to be removed the “sooner the better”, or labeling him a Mussolini or Nazi-like figure?
Who paid Twitter millions to censor the news of political opponents?
Who paid foreign national Christopher Steele to peddle a fake dossier to destroy the 2016 Republican candidate?
Do we remember Biden’s Phantom-of-the-Opera harangue about his “ultra-MAGA” and “semi-fascists” political enemies?
Were not the twin pillars of Biden’s current foreign policy team, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, once respectively knee-deep in the anti-Trump Alfa Bank-ping hoax and the “51 Intelligence Authorities” laptop scam?
Again, the reason the media and politicians are terrified is that they are convinced Trump would do exactly what they would do in his place—and what they would do utterly suddenly horrifies them.
@Colts owner @JimIrsay says he was arrested "because he's a white Billionaire."
#JimIrsay was loaded on pills, driving 10 Mph, his speech was slurred, he had $29,000 in cash, 1000's of Rx pills on his person. Relapse starts before you pick up, Jim. #NFL
https://t.co/I7TFaBMoGD