from the (sub)stack-of-hypocrites dept
For years, a vocal group of self-described “contrarian” Substackified pundits warned about a supposed “censorship industrial complex” involving collusion between the White House and social media companies to set content moderation policies. There was just one problem: it wasn’t even close to true.
Now, with Elon Musk owning ExTwitter and Donald Trump back in the White House, we have a situation that actually matches what those contrarian chroniclers claimed to fear: powerful tech moguls with direct ties to the administration in a position to influence online speech. Suddenly, the grave concerns about “creeping authoritarianism” have evaporated. The double standard couldn’t be more blatant.
So, I figured it was worth calling out the hypocrisy, and MSNBC kindly gave me the space to do so:
The limited space in the MSNBC piece prevented me from delving into the additional hypocrisy around how swiftly Elon Musk banned a reporter and links related to the leaked JD Vance dossier. This action was an even more extreme version of what GOP pundits have baselessly claimed Twitter did with the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story.
Yet, even as the completely exaggerated claims about what happened with Twitter and the Hunter laptop are still regularly brought up by the MAGA faithful, the story about Elon and the Vance dossier disappeared after, what, two days?
But, really, the piece takes aim at the Elon/Trump enablers. The Sophist Substackerati who position themselves as brave truth tellers, standing up to government overreach: the Matt Taibbis, Michael Shellenbergers, and Bari Weisses of the world, who all seem to have forgotten what they were saying not too long ago about the hallucinated story of coziness between the White House and social media.
The “Twitter Files” pundits built their brands on a false narrative of anti-establishment rebellion against the “elite” trying to control social media. But when faced with the real thing, they’re too busy high-fiving each other to care. Their “grave concerns” about government collusion with Big Tech have suddenly evaporated now that the administration and the tech mogul are their ideological allies.
Or, as I note:
There’s a lot more in the piece, but I want to point out why it’s so important to call out this hypocrisy. I know that there are a bunch of cynical “too savvy for school” folks who always respond to things like this by saying “what, it surprises you that they were full of shit?”
No, it doesn’t surprise me at all. I’ve been calling out this kind of nonsense for years. But people who don’t follow this stuff closely don’t know this. There are so many times where I hear something these nonsense peddlers pushed over and over again pop up in the mainstream media or among random people who just assume what they’re saying is accurate.
Calling out the hypocrisy isn’t to impact those in the Intellectual Derp Web. They have their captured audiences and have made it clear they don’t give a shit. But it’s important to remind everyone else what the grift is here. The cluelessness, the gaslighting, and the utter nonsense they spent years spreading for clout. Some of us recognize it for what it was.
We need to keep telling people and reminding people so that everyone else knows it’s bullshit too.