The True Nodes of Power 

The ongoing drama at Twitter — along with all the antic heat — has also helpfully illustrated where key power points in our society and economy really reside. Because Twitter is now a private company — no market reactions to worry about — and has no board, Elon Musk can, at least in the short run, do pretty much anything he likes. That’s part of the drama and craziness of the moment. Yoel Roth is the former head of safety at Twitter. He held on for the first few weeks before eventually resigning. Afterwards he wrote an op-ed about the situation in the Times. It’s a very interesting piece, filled with more information than indignation. It’s worth reading. But one thing he noted had gotten very little attention so far in the coverage of the Musk-Twitter story. Twitter is deeply reliant on access to the Apple and Android (owned by Google) app stores.

Trump’s Rough Week and the ‘Press Bias Avoidance’ Framework 

Yesterday morning TPM Reader MS asked, “Is it my imagination or has the press turned against Trump?” It may seem that way and perhaps it is effectively the case. But not precisely. What’s happened over the last week — and especially in response to the Kanye/Fuentes/Trump hoedown — illustrates a key feature of the political journalism and news ecosystems.

No, it’s not that the press has turned against Trump. It’s that Republican political elites are not defending him. That changes the tenor of press coverage in clear and immediate ways. If one party is defending something or supporting it, it trips off the framework of “bias” or rather what we might call “press bias avoidance.” So such and such happened or so and so did this. Many say it’s bad. But what do their defenders say? Their defenders say X. It’s a story with two sides. Events like the January 6th insurrection and the Big Lie have put this model under strain. But it’s persistent and robust.

Elon Musk and the Narcissism/Radicalization Maelstrom 

It’s a fascinating thing to watch far-right radicalization unfold in real time. I’ve been watching the Elon Musk and Twitter drama with a mix of fascination and awe. He bought Twitter as part of his romance with the “free speech”/anti-“cancel culture” right and Donald Trump. Just what set him off on that path has never been adequately or convincingly explained, though there are a number of very plausible and not-mutually exclusive theories. Over the last four weeks Musk’s attachment to this crowd and that ideology have been constantly apparent. He gave an early and even for him startling taste of this when he tweeted out a rank gay-bashing conspiracy theory about the QAnon dead-ender’s hammer attack on Paul Pelosi days before the November 8th election. The process has only accelerated and intensified over the subsequent four weeks.

As he virtually high-fives supporters on Twitter he’s moved on from “free speech” and ending bans on people like Donald Trump to a much more explicit insistence that old Twitter management ran the site with the express purpose of elevating the left over the right. So just two days ago, for instance, he wrote: “Far left San Francisco/Berkeley views have been propagated to the world via Twitter. I’m sure this comes as no surprise to anyone watching closely. Twitter is moving rapidly to establish an even playing field. No more thumb on the scale!”