juntileverything went well here. And then Mr. Elon Musk did the irreparable: On Thursday, December 15, the man who had bought Twitter for $44 billion to, he swore, restore freedom of expression, temporarily suspended the personal accounts of nine American journalists on the reason that they would have transmitted the position of the billionaire in real time – which the interested parties deny. Immediately, the spokesman of the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) protested, the Vice-President of the European Commission denounced the censorship and threatened sanctions, the French Industry Minister went into hiding, announcing « suspend all activity on Twitter until further notice » (one can imagine Mr. Musk’s terror…), while the German Foreign Minister is scandalized that freedom of the press can be found like this” turned on and off at will » (1). Within forty-eight hours, a 26,000-character (two pages of this diary) notice popped up on Wikipedia titled “ The Thursday Night Massacre ».
On Twitter journalists and moralists of the platform are unleashed. Disillusionment stuns them: for thousands of hours they have crossed swords behind their small screen, scrutinized the reactions provoked by their conceptual discoveries in 280 characters, given and received lessons. This space to talk and be told was true democracy ! Thinking to fuel it, they created value for Twitter’s shareholders and its sympathetic boss at the time, a bearded libertarian billionaire with hippie leanings. Private ownership of social networks was not a problem for them.
Not even censorship. Not a dignitary of free world didn’t back down when Twitter management suspended the accounts of a vile American tabloid owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch in October 2020, the New York Post, who published accurate information about the escapades of Mr. Hunter Biden, son of the Democratic candidate for president of the United States – a disinformation of the Russians, then advanced the New York Times. Even the revelation last December by journalist Matt Taibbi of the censorship policy conducted by the platform with the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and governments did not stir the progressive tweetosphere. (2). No more than the February 27, 2022 ban of the Russian channels RT and Sputnik announced by the president of the European Commission on the basis that these Kremlin-funded media outlets were trying to « sow division in our Union ». Freedom of expression is too precious a commodity to be shared with our adversaries, isn’t it? ?
The situation is excellent: Mr. Musk has not only demolished and discredited Twitter, that narcissus nirvana, but he has also exposed the hypocrisy of those who adored him. The “ Thursday night massacre exhibits twin and playard conceptions of the “ freedom of expression “. That, advocated by bosses like Mr. Musk, which consists of censoring critics by buying the media ; that, defended by professors of virtue, progressive or reactionary, of applauding censorship when it targets one’s opponents.
Meanwhile, Mr. Julian Assange, a dissident from the Western world, has been deprived of his liberty for more than ten years. Guilty of publicizing US war crimes in Iraq, he is serving a slow death sentence in a maximum security London prison, awaiting extradition to the United States, where further torment awaits him. His health is deteriorating. In 2020 justice granted him a computer: we are in a democracy, let’s not forget that ! – but after gluing the keys with glue (3). His ordeal is indifferent, freedom of expression dies elsewhere: Mr. Musk suspended the Twitter accounts of nine journalists for eighteen hours.
