Robot "saving" us from iRobot's
While many celebrate Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, some are loudly freaking out but the unpopular rhetoric at this juncture is that we are all walking into a tightly controlled surveillance system with a few oligarchs at the helm.
Author of Surveillance Valley, Yasha Levine asks a poignant question in his Substack publication:
Here you have Elon — an “outsider” — mounting a hostile takeover of a major global communication platform. And the thing about him is that he’s not just a successful lithium battery salesman, he’s also a major military contractor doing business with the most secretive and “strategically important” spooks in America.
The fact is that the “free speech” “outsider” oligarch now running a major public communication platform has a ridiculously close relationship to America’s security state. He’s been making good money doing his part to make sure America maintains its global military dominance. What do you think he’ll do with Twitter?
Something to think about, huh? My hunch is that he will continue to further his close relationship with the Military Industrial Complex (with juicy contracts)..
I am not saying Twitter in its former disposition was good but I think it will get worse and no one will notice under the guise of Elon’s charm. It was bound to get worse anyways…This acquisition just blinds many and gives many a supposed savior of “free speech”.
I find it interesting that almost immediately, the Biden administration is talking about reforming section 230 as a way to “combat misinformation” on social media.
I would not be surprised if this will herald America’s version of the UK’s Online safety bill. I have written about similar legislation in other developed countries previously:
The covert message of the section 230 reform to Elon Musk is thus:
“do what we say, or we will regulate, destroy, or take over your company if we have to, and make the purchase of Twitter the biggest waste of your entire life.”
What do you think he will do then?
Maybe authenticate real humans by linking it to a Digital ID system for social media?
While some are celebrating our newly minted “free speech” savior, I am left contemplating if we even need to be saved by anyone. Only by our hands, words and deeds can we achieve absolute freedom.
We are placing so much trust in a questionable and errable robot only capable of executing his programming code.
Seems like we are slowly getting the predicted AI overlord.
See you tomorrow!
- Ope