«Vox Populi, Vox DeiElon Musk said on his Twitter account on the 20th. He did so as an apostille after posting a poll asking ordinary Twitter users if they wanted Donald Trump’s account unblocked, once saying the poll ended with 51.8% of the vote for, compared to 48.2% who were against. The voice of the people is the voice of God, a phrase that suggests that it is the sovereignty of the people that should decide. Another principle by which Musk intended to show us his deep democratic convictions.

As you may remember, two days ago we told you that the new owner of Twitter decided to delete an account on the social network that he was particularly uncomfortable with because it tracked the movements of his private jet around the world. The same account that claimed a little over a month earlier that a ban was not coming, proving that the free speech advocate who invented the concept didn’t win either.

Although at first it seemed that the reason for the removal was the anti-bot policy, it later turned out that it was Twitter’s “anti-doxing” policy (a rule, by the way, put in place expressly to justify the closure of this account, as we can read in Vice), and that would a stranger chase a vehicle in which one of his relatives was traveling (he said he thought he was in it). At this point, I wonder if the jet’s tracking account also reported the location of billionaire cars, as well as taxis, Ubers and the like that use its environment (just sarcasm, actually I know it didn’t).

Did Elon Musk’s jet tracking account have anything to do with the incident he claims sparked it all? Well, that seems unlikely because it didn’t happen near any airport where a jet could operate as far as we can read in this tweet by Eliot Higgins. The Twitter owner hasn’t produced a single piece of evidence to support this relationship, but of course, who needs evidence to press charges?

Anyway, they make me buy this reasoning (I’m not kidding, I’m saying it to advance this story) and therefore I agree that the removal of this account was in accordance with Twitter’s rules and was done for security reasons. But if I ask, is it also a threat to your safety and the safety of your family that journalists and media are reporting this?

I ask because in the last few hours, according to Mashable’s tally, Twitter has closed the accounts of Mashable’s Matt Binder, New York Times’ Ryan Mac, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell, commentator and former anchor Keith Olbermann, a freelance journalist Tony Webster, The Intercept’s Micah Flee, VOA’s Steve Herman and freelance journalist Aaron Rupar. The nine whistleblowers that Musk describes as “journalists” (yes, in quotes) that agree on one point: the disclosure of information about the closure of Elon Musk’s jet tracking account.

Additionally, at the end of the day, Twitter also closed the account of ADB-S Exchange, a public flight data information service that used the account to track jet aircraft, and the accounts of other users who posted links to aircraft tracking profiles. in other social networks. And as a bonus, Twitter also shut down Mastodon’s main profile and began marking all links to the social network as spam, preventing them from being published. Something that “coincidentally” (I’m putting quotes now) coincides with a new surge of Mastodon users collected by Jeff Jarvis.

Twitter, Elon Musk and Freedom of Speech WHAT?

Lies are like boomerangs, the harder you throw them, the harder they come back. Elon Musk started out as the owner of Twitter saying that his cause was a little less (or maybe a little more) than a crusade for free speech, that he was a true Democrat, and that he came to the social network to allow voices, even those most critical of him , had the place that Twitter reached the status of a great digital agora. He even went so far as to request that his biggest detractors remain as users, so that no vote (if it complies with Twitter’s rules) is excluded.

What he didn’t tell us, of course, is that what does and doesn’t belong on a social network depends on their actual…opinions. And it also shows that within a month he defended the presence of a certain account, then changed the rules so that it was no longer the case, deleted the account, and on the back of some journalists (I write this without quotation marks, not like him), who promptly reported what happened. Free speech doesn’t protect content that hypocrite Musk I doesn’t like.

It also seems to me that we should take a moment to address the fact that I already mentioned that when I mentioned the expulsion of journalists from the social network, I decided to use quotation marks to refer to them. It’s subtle, of course, but it’s not the same as calling journalists “journalists,” and Musk knows exactly what he’s doing when he chooses to use quotation marks. It’s very easy to understand, it’s not the same when someone tells you that you did something well as when they tell you that you did something “right”, right? I believe that this needs no further explanation and that it shows that the owner of Twitter intends to write a very controversial speech and that he does not pay attention to details.

So these days we saw Musk raise the first two free speech amendments on Twitter:

• Amendment 1: If I don’t like a certain type of content, I will create new rules or edit the rules to no longer allow it and close those accounts.
• Addendum 2: If there is a social network that could compromise mine, I will close their account and ban their links.

And by the way, you might be wondering why I started this article by quoting Musk when he said “Voice Populi, Vox Dei” and I remembered the vote percentages about Donald Trump’s return to Twitter, right? Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about it. If you follow Musk or his activity on the social network, you have surely already verified that he likes to set up polls and strictly monitors their results when applying the mentioned principle.

Democrat Elon, the one who came to bring free speech and democracy to Twitter, the one who says the voice of the people is the voice of God… unless he doesn’t like what the voice of the people says, in which case he seems to he changes the saying to Vox Musk, Vox Dei, something much more fitting of the persona he has been demonstrating for a long time. Why? Because this morning he released the first poll asking about the future of monitor accounts that have been banned. He asked when to restore them and offered four options: Now, tomorrow, in seven days, or later. After an hour, the results were as follows:

• Already: 43.3%
• Tomorrow: 4.5%
• Within seven days: 14.1%
• Later: 38.1%

That, Vox Populi He mostly said that the unblocking of the accounts should happen today. And what did the very democratic Musk do? Have you posted accounts yet? Can we recheck your jet flights in real time? Well, the truth is, no. In fact, he sent a message that said: “Sorry, too many options. I will repeat the survey«. The difference between the most voted option (Now) and the second most voted option (Later) was 4.9 points, more than the 3.6 points that separated Yes from No on Trump’s return. But in this case, of course, the answer was not what he wanted.

Granted, shortly after he posted a second poll, this one with only two options, now and within seven days (right now the first wins with 58.6% of the vote), but is four really too many options? ?? Does Musk really think Twitter users are lost if they have to choose between more than two? Or you didn’t like the color things were taking and decided to try your luck in the second round? And if he’s so democratic, why didn’t he pick the two most voted options in the first poll?

As a summary version of what has happened in recent days, we can confirm that Elon Musk has shown that his commitment to free speech is as hard as jelly and as long-lasting as a cake at the school door. And not only because new rules were invented to exclude an account from Twitter that he personally defended only a month ago, but also because his pulse did not waver when it comes to blocking the accounts of journalists who reported on him. I’d like to think that, on principle at least, he no longer dares to talk about his or Twitter’s role in defending free speech because he’s proven himself to be a first-rate censor, but I’m afraid he’s expecting too much.

And yes, if I’m going to take a side, I don’t hesitate for a tenth of a second to do so for Binder, Mac, O’Sullivan, Harwell, Olbermann, Webster, Flee, Herman and Rupar, journalists with capital letters and , without the quotes of course. Each of them, individually, has done more for free speech without the fanfare than Elon Musk has done in his entire life, and even more since he’s owned Twitter.