Put in your two cents worth
Although the deal is currently on hold, Elon Musk may still to buy Twitter for $44 billion dollars.
That amount of money, and the influence it can buy, is beyond the imagination of most people.
Twitter will still be for individuals, but which are the individuals? Are there some of us who can’t use such a platform in the way the elite rich can do?
Free speech is critically important, but free speech is too many things to too many people.
“Free speech” is an easy term to grab by the throat and scream is your right. However, human exchange and speech used to be dependent upon face to face human interaction. It was modulated by our nature and our humanity.
It was accessible, arguably, to all people. Not just tech, not just business, not just politics, or publishing. And although privilege has always skewed results, we are seeing more kinds of privilege at the top, not less.
Now, access to free speech is driving the whole world into polarization, fear-mongering, and varying roads to inequality.
It is now more and more restricted to those with internet access, all the good gadgets and toys, and those who can afford the expertise, time, money, and people needed to “get your voice out there!”
If you want to put in your two cents to opine your perspective, you better raise more money.
Divided attentions
Shira Ovide of the New York Times wrote that we may will see ever more clamoring, for what she calls sales pitches for “cryptocurrency, fake Gucci handbags, and porn.”
This is a good summary for the times of bread and circuses we find ourselves in. Some teams still favor the mega-rich gladiators who want to be worshipped as tech gods, founding space moguls, and pillars of capitalism so high and mighty, we could never get our mega-phones up there.
Of course, many other indulgences will also be vying for our attention, including propaganda devised to make you choose sides on social issues like racism, sexism, human sexual orientation, classroom teaching, religion, and the climate crisis.
The truth is Musk, and others with extremely powerful platforms, like Zuckerberg, and Bezos, are going to continue to emerge because, like vampires, we invited them into our lives.
Our task now is to try to use reason, intuition, common sense, and most of all discipline to stay off the outrage machines and stay in our civil veneer of being the best people we can be.
We all need a voice, but we have to listen to one another, first and foremost.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Alexander Shatov on Unsplash