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Media's Unhealthy Obsession With Elon Musk Comes Back to Bite Them

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  November 28, 2022 11:55 PM

Elon Musk has caused liberals to absolutely lose their mind ever since there was merely chatter that he was going to take over Twitter. It's only increased since he took over, with his critics showing how opposed they are to free speech when they come after him. As Leah highlighted earlier in her VIP piece, a concern with Twitter has been spamming and bots, which really came out in the very public feud Alexander Vindman has sought to have with Musk.

When it comes to discussing liberals' problems with Musk, that point extends to include the mainstream media as well, who jumped on the bandwagon of acting like the world was going to end with Musk providing what he described in a user poll as "amnesty" to those accounts previously suspended.

He had already reinstated former and potentially future President Donald Trump's account back on November 19. Making the leftist freakout even more nonsensical is the Trump hasn't actually tweeted since January 8, 2021. As Spencer pointed out not long after, Trump may not be tweeting due to the legalese to do with his own social media platform of Truth Social, which he's also communicated a preference for. 

Not only do Twitter users want Trump and other accounts back, as evidenced from these polls, they also are sick and tired of the mainstream media making this isn't something it's not. 

This isn't merely with regards to CBS News' move, which lasted a mere few days, to pause activity on the platform, how they took "the weekend to assess the security concerns." 

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In light of Musk's poll and ultimate announcement to do with suspended accounts, numerous mainstream media and particularly leftist outlets were thoroughly ratioed for raising the alarm on what many see as a non-issue. 

Some outlets got bizarrely creative, as was the case with Forbes, which on Friday tweeted out "Elon Musk Inherited Twitter’s Child Abuse Nightmare—Experts Say He’s Making It Worse" It not only had multiple authors attached to it--Alexandra S. Levine and Thomas Brewster, the latter being an associate editor for the site--it was heralded as an "editors' pick" on the site.

It received a much different kind of treatment on Twitter, with over 3,000 replies taking issue with the piece. Of the 580 retweets, 444 are quoted retweets mocking the piece. 

In all seriousness, though, that's quite the charge to accuse Musk of making child abuse worse, and hiding behind "experts" to make such a claim, as so many in the mainstream media are prone to do. 

Nicholas Reimann and Robert Hart had also covered it as breaking news the day before, on Thanksgiving, how "Elon Musk Says He’s Granting ‘Amnesty’ For Nearly All Banned Twitter Accounts."

In their piece, they mentioned that there had been "a chaotic few weeks filled with confusion over Twitter's moderation practices."

Also on November 24, which again, was Thanksgiving, as if these outlets don't have anything better to do on the holiday, the Associated Press and Axios similarly went after Musk. 

The AP's article has nearly 12,000 replies, including from Musk himself, which received more likes than the original tweet of the article in question. 

Musk also took part in replying to the Axios tweet as well, which was just as full of fear-mongering as Rebecca Falconer's headline of how "Musk's Twitter 'amnesty' plan for suspended accounts alarms activists." The tweet received over 6,000 replies. 

There was also The Washington Post's Taylor Lorenz from that same day, because of course there was, who in addition to writing an article with the headline of "‘Opening the gates of hell’: Musk says he will revive banned accounts," has nonsensically has claimed that Musk's policies are "anti-free speech."

Our friends at Twitchy highlighted how journalist Glenn Greenwald perfectly highlighted the freakout in multiple tweets of his own. Greenwald's tweets include expletives to draw attention to just how absurd he finds Lorenz's piece. 

What is a deeper issue though, especially when it comes to free speech, is how Apple has threatened to pull the Twitter app from their app store and has mostly ceased advertising. This is deeply hypocritical, almost laughably so if not for the gravity of the situation, as Apple is meanwhile caving to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 

Musk himself is also potentially the target of the powers that be, in this case Democrats, not just Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, but the Biden administration. 

The most recent examples comes from just earlier on Monday. During the White House press briefing, when asked by a reporter about "misinformation," Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre emphasized "we're all keeping a close on this" and "monitoring what's--what's currently occurring."

She went on to say that "but again, social media companies have a responsibility to prevent their platforms from being used by any user to incite violence, especially violence directed at individual communities, as we have been seeing. And the president has been very clear on calling that out. He’ll continue to do that. And we’re going to continue to monitor the situation."