‘Shadowbanning’, ‘visibility filtering’, ‘de-amplification’ – the Twitter Files released since Elon Musk took over have given us a new and sinister language of digital censorship. I am no fan of Musk’s capricious self-promotion. His vanity appals me and his vindictive attacks on former Twitter employees are gross. However, I credit him with telling us more about the inner workings of social media in two weeks than we learned in the last two decades.
As in a palace coup, there is often a moment of transparency before the next dictator takes over. Of course, the Twitter Files have to be taken with a high degree of scepticism. They are partisan to the extent that Elon Musk sees himself as a crusader against what he calls the ‘woke mind virus’. However, I am puzzled that mainstream journalists have shown so little interest in what the files have revealed about the internal culture of a hugely influential medium.
Even those commentators most critical of Musk, and the files, have been forced to concede there is clear evidence Twitter ‘enforced its
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