It’s Not Anyone In The Senate’s Job To Save Twitter From Elon Musk
Look, by now it's pretty clear that Elon Musk is deeply, deeply in above his head at Twitter, in ways that could have some pretty significant legal consequences. Even so, it's still not the job of politicians to make decisions for him. He is free to destroy the company (and a good chunk of his fortune) on his own. Yet, for whatever reason, senators from both parties feel the need to weigh in.
Soon after Musk took over and some big advertisers announced they were pausing their advertising on Twitter, Senator Tom Cotton started warning" advertisers that they should think carefully" before doing so. That's pretty clearly a threat of retaliation:
A week later, he repeated the same threat, telling companies to think twice before entering the political arena."
This was... stupid for many reasons. The companies weren't pulling their ads for political" reasons but for the same free market capitalist reasons that Republicans used to pretend they supported. Because it's bad for your brand to be advertising on a platform that caters to bigots. So it's kinda weird for a senator to basically admit that his party is so dangerous for advertisers to associate their brands with that he has to threaten them with retaliation for choosing to take their business elsewhere.
It's also a pretty ridiculous attempt at undermining the 1st Amendment's right to associate, or not, with any kind of speech. Congress has no role at all in telling companies whom they must advertise with.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, we have Senator Ed Markey. His grandstanding is slightly less bad than Tom Cotton's threats, but he sent a letter to Twitter and tweeted it to Elon Musk demanding answers" about the whole verification debacle after a Washington Post reporter (with permission from Markey) was able to create a fake Ed Markey account and get a blue check on it by paying $8. From the letter:
As the Washington Post article explains, a reporter with a spare iPhone, a credit card and a littlecreativity" was able in minutes to set up an account under the Twitter handle @realedmarkey."The Post reporter was able to accomplish this impersonation despite Twitter having previouslyverified my actual Twitter account under the handle @SenMarkey." Compounding Twitter'sverification dysfunction, a pop-up stated that the fake account was verified because I was anotable person in government, not because someone had paid for the verification bluecheckmark.
Safeguards such as Twitter's blue checkmark once allowed users to be smart, critical consumersof news and information in Twitter's global town square. But your Twitter takeover, rapid andhaphazard imposition of platform changes, removal of safeguards against disinformation, andfiring of large numbers of Twitter employees have accelerated Twitter's descent into the Wild West of social media. That is unacceptable. Twitter and its leadership have a responsibility to thepublic to ensure the platform doesn't become a breeding ground for manipulation and deceit.
Notwithstanding Twitter's terminating Twitter Blue and paid-for blue checkmark verificationshortly after this and other instances of online imposters, Twitter must explain itself
Now, you can make an argument that Markey's complaints at least touch on issues that are legitimate, regarding fraud and impersonation, but his letter goes much further than that and touch on things that Congress has no ability to weigh in on at all, including whether or not Twitter is a wild west of social media" and a breeding ground for manipulation and deceit." That's really not Congress's business. If Elon wants to destroy the company this way, that's his business.
Of course, Elon has handled all of this in the stupidest possible manner, mocking and taunting Senator Markey in response, saying Perhaps it is because your real account sounds like a parody?" and then mocking the Senator for wearing a mask in his profile picture.
Now, Musk has a 1st Amendment right to respond this way, and again, I think that Markey's demands were questionable, at best. But, it sure seems like a bad idea for a guy who runs multiple companies that rely on the US government. Markey's response notes as much, saying: One of your companies is under an FTC consent decree. Auto safety watchdog NHTSA is investigating another for killing people. And you're spending your time picking fights online. Fix your companies. Or Congress will."
He's not wrong about the FTC and NHTSA stuff, but the fix your companies, or Congress will" again seems questionable. There are areas that Congress can regulate. But speech is not one of them. And Musk is free to destroy the reputation of Twitter and to allow people to do stupid things on Twitter even if he did it 4 da lulz" as he tweeted and then deleted....
Congress has more important things to work on then either helping or harming Twitter.