Elon Musk has seized the memes of production
All hail Elon Musk! The world’s richest person has single-handedly saved free speech! After months of drama Musk has finally completed his $44bn acquisition of Twitter and become– in his own words – “Chief Twit”. Conservatives are ecstatic about this. “Let’s be honest, Elon Musk buying Twitter is the greatest thing that has happened to freedom of speech and therefore humanity in the last 20 years,” one conservative commentator gushed.
Let’s be honest: it isn’t. The idea that Musk’s takeover of Twitter has anything to do with protecting free speech is ludicrous. Musk likes to paint himself as a “free speech absolutist” but the thin-skinned billionaire has demonstrated time and time again that he’s very fond of censorship when it suits him. Earlier this year, for example, SpaceX, Musk’s rocket ship company, fired at least five employees who circulated an internal letter describing Musk’s public behaviour as “a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment”. The billionaire also has a history of trying to silence his critics. In one instance he tracked down the employer of an investor who wrote critically about Tesla under a pseudonym and threatened to sue him if he didn’t stop writing about Musk’s company. I really don’t think it can be stressed enough that Musk’s acquisition of Twitter isn’t about promoting free speech, it’s about promoting Musk’s worldview.
While conservatives are thrilled about Musk’s Twitter takeover, liberals and activists are worried that Musk is going to undo content moderation policies and allow hate and misinformation to take over the platform. In the last few days there have been a lot of hot takes and handwringing about Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, fueled by his firing of some of the company’s top executives including Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal policy, trust & safety, who was behind the permanent suspension of Donald Trump. Here’s my own lukewarm take: I don’t think Musk is actually going to change the platform that much. Musk talks a big talk about free speech but he’s also a pragmatist. He can’t let the site turn into too much of a far-right cesspit or it’ll hemorrhage users and advertisers. He’s already basically admitted this. In a letter posted to Twitter on Thursday, Musk said he doesn’t want the site to become “a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences”.
I’m not saying Musk’s Twitter takeover is no big deal, to be clear. Musk is taking the company private which means it will be harder to regulate. It seems inevitable that he’s going to loosen content moderation and allow more abuse and misinformation to permeate the already hellish platform. And it seems likely that he will reinstate Donald Trump’s account. All of that is bad but, at the end of the day, Twitter is a pretty niche platform that most people in the world don’t give a damn about. That can be easy to forget because a disproportionate number of heavy users of the site are journalists who are obsessed with it and won’t stop talking about it (I am guilty of this myself). Misinformation on Twitter is dangerous but its reach is limited compared with the likes of Fox News. Musk might change all that, of course, and turn the company from a niche service into a mainstream media powerhouse. But my hunch is that he won’t. My hunch is that he’ll get bored of it and try to offload the company soon so he can focus on sending bionic pigs to Mars or reinventing underground tunnels.
Second woman says Herschel Walker pressured her to have abortion
The Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia is vehemently anti-abortion … except, it would appear, when it benefits him.
New Zealand female lawmakers outnumber men for the first time
There are 60 women and 59 men in parliament now. Not many countries can claim at least 50% female representation in their parliaments but others in the 50% club include Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Rwanda and the United Arab Emirates.
Why was everyone on the internet up in arms about a lesbian emu farmer influencer?
I’m not even going to try and explain but if you’d like to go down this particular rabbit hole, Jezebel has you covered.
There’s finally a crash test dummy aimed at protecting women drivers
Since the 1970s the dummy used to test car safety have been based on the average male build and weight. The dummy meant to represent women, meanwhile, has simply been a scaled-down version of a man that is representative of the smallest 5% of women. That means worse safety outcomes for women. Finally some Swedish engineers have developed a dummy that is actually based on the body of an average woman. Whether it will actually be used is another issue.
China to revise women’s protection law for first time in nearly 30 years
Legislation giving women more protection against gender discrimination and sexual harassment at work was submitted to China’s parliament on Thursday.
New Zealand women to be able to access abortion over the phone
The country is going to become one of only a few in the world that offers a full national telehealth service for abortion. Women will be able to access clinical consultations and procure abortion pills in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
Young girls being sold in India to repay loans, says human rights body
Among the cases highlighted by the National Human Rights Commission “is that of a man who borrowed 1.5m rupees (£15,800) from a neighbour who was forced … to sell his sister and 12-year-old daughter to settle the debt.”
Same-sex marriage is now legal everywhere in Mexico
On Wednesday the border state of Tamaulipas voted to legalize same-sex marriages, becoming the last of Mexico’s 32 states to do so.
The week in paint-riarchy
A Piet Mondrian painting has been hanging upside down ever since it was first put on display 75 years ago, an art historian has discovered. “Once I pointed it out to the other curators, we realised it was very obvious,” the historian said. Unfortunately it can not be turned the right way up now or it will disintegrate.
