One billion views. This is the official number of total interactions (direct or referring to comment posts) that X counted in the three hours of the conversation between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. It is therefore reasonable to say that we are faced with the most significant political event ever to have occurred on a social network. This is precisely where we must start to evaluate Musk’s decision to make his support for the Republican candidate even more explicit, showing the world the strength of a social network that bypasses every form of “traditional” mediation, including journalists. And we also need to get out of the collective hypocrisy that many observers hostile to Trump feed on, that hypocrisy that makes the political line of a newspaper or a television channel acceptable but that of a social network unacceptable.
Let’s stop reasoning in a childish or stupid way. Today the information game sees all the media in action, each with its inclinations, its interests, its more or less confessable motivations. Musk turns the table as is his habit, putting everyone before the fait accompli: he, an editor in all respects, explicitly chooses who to side with between the two contenders, with an operation of appreciable intellectual honesty, certainly more direct and recognizable than others seen in the past, when a well-known editorial line ended up trying to get confused in an unlikely balancing act.
With Musk the king is naked and there is no pretense. The publishers have their interests and their opinions, they put them on the table and then the citizens judge, this is the message he sends us by conversing on “his” channel, for which he has invested over 40 billion dollars. On the other hand, it is enough to look back to see how many somersaults have been made by many of those who today criticize the South African tycoon.
He is the savior of Ukraine, when he makes his Starlink devices available to guarantee web connection in the first months of the Russian invasion. He is the prophet of a new American automotive industry of the latest generation and maximum respect for the environment: Tesla’s bet gathers consensus in the entire progressive world on both sides of the ocean. He is the man of the future when he founds the most important private company of space enterprises, succeeding where everyone had failed until his descent into the field.
They praised him in universities, they celebrated him in events and interviews of all kinds.
In short, the man with a turnover of 100 billion dollars was very much liked, in fact, by those who now criticize his support for the former right-wing president.
And in any case, Musk chooses Trump at the most difficult moment for the latter, because Harris annoys him because she is a woman, well-prepared and, what’s more, younger than him.
This was not the case in the clash with Hillary Clinton (who nevertheless received the most votes overall), because in 2016 she was in power (Secretary of State, i.e. Minister of Foreign Affairs) and he was the outsider.
Today Harris arrives after Biden’s exit, with whom Trump would have won hands down. She is Vice President, but the retirement of the old Joe B has given her a patina of freshness and novelty. And here comes the New York Times, which with a liberal and complacent tone churns out polls that see Harris ahead of Trump in some key states (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan).
So I say: why can NYT have an editorial line and X should function as a soulless platform? It’s a ridiculous claim, social networks promote their interests (commercial and otherwise) every day, every hour, every minute. Musk chooses Trump and does it directly. Enough whining: he’s giving us a lesson in transparency.
#lesson #transparency #Tempo
2024-08-15 13:46:51
