Published , by Sam Chandler
Published , by Sam Chandler
In the ever-evolving story that is Elon Musk and Twitter, the CEO of the social media platform tweeted that AOC’s alleged shadowban was a “naked abuse of power”. Considering Musk purports to favor free speech, and given that Twitter is apparently haemorrhaging money, it’s likely not a good idea to joke about such things, assuming it was a joke.
As the story goes, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to social media to express her perspective on something happening to her Twitter account. In the video, AOC noted that her Mentions were completely blank – a sign that someone has been shadowbanned from Twitter. While the ephemeral video has disappeared into the ether, Benny Johnson captured the video, uploaded it Twitter, and tagged Elon Musk noting, “AOC thinks Elon Musk is messing with her Twitter app”.
Elon Musk, known to tweet unhinged things late in the evening, replied, “What can I say? It was a naked abuse of power.”
Whether or not Elon Musk actually abused his power to shadowban Ocasio-Cortez is unknown. However, when you run a social media platform that can be regulated by government bodies, it’s likely not a good idea to joke about an abuse of power to a United States Representative.
Shibetoshi Nakamoto, also known as Billy, took to Twitter to ponder the monetization process of the social media platform. Billy notes that it must be difficult to monetize Twitter as it is “hard to mix business with people’s shitty opinions.” Musk replied with one of his favorite emojis in a series of glyphs to describe turning trash into treasure.
Given AOC’s, Stephen King’s, and many other’s opinions of Musk instilling an $8 a month fee for the verification checkmark, it comes as no surprise that Musk has taken personal offense to others in power disagreeing with his monetization methods. It's probably also a bad look to be making these comments on the eve of firing 3,700 employees. We’ll be sure to keep you up to date as Elon Musk continues to play games with people on Twitter.