Love him or hate him, but either way, it’s hard to understate how Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter rocked the social media world. Even if the deal doesn’t go through, we’re starting to see more of the woke figures behind the digital curtain.
And thanks to a whistleblower who sent a video to Project Veritas, we also know that Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter, talked about removing conservative thought from his platform in January 2021. He said that the censorship would begin with President Donald Trump’s account, but that would only be the beginning.
His excuse for this was associating anything tangential to that horrible orange dude and Q’Anon, which I’m starting to doubt even exists. And let’s not forget that when he heard about what was transpiring in the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Trump tweeted a message to his supporters to remain peaceful. Yep, that’s clearly outside the bounds.
A more recent Project Veritas video features a senior engineer employed by Twitter admitting that his colleagues are “commie as f**k,” Twitter has no interest in protecting free speech, and conservatives are censored in order to keep liberals on the platform.
He goes on to say that the company is run on socialist principles instead of capitalistic ones, and many at Twitter fear Elon Musk’s strict work ethic expectations. I guess when you work four hours a week, something this Twitter employee said outright, a forty-hour work week would be cause for concern.
Promises and Lies
Twitter touts itself as “an open service that’s home to a world of diverse people, perspectives, ideas, and information” that values health, the trust of its users, philanthropy along with profit, and making its platform easily accessible to its users. Under its philanthropy link, the company boldly proclaims “We support initiatives that defend and respect all voices by promoting free expression and defending civil liberties.”
Really? Is anyone else feeling gaslit? If Twitter came out and said that it had a political agenda that would be one thing, even if it’s a political agenda right of center Americans oppose. At least that would be respectable. The CEO of CNN came out in 2016 and said that the network’s business model relied on Trump bashing, so its viewers knew exactly what they were going to get.
Twitter, however, has been caught with its commie pants down through whistleblower leaks and undercover journalism. The accounts that express opinions that rub the “left, left, left, left” Twitter employees the wrong way are subject to suspension or expulsion from a platform that holds no responsibility or liability for what its users post. Those who dare challenge his regal lordship Dr. Fauci had their accounts flagged and their posts “fact checked.” This coming from a monopolistic company committed to “defending civil liberties.”
It seems to me that we should hold companies accountable for making public promises to their consumers and violating these promises behind the veil of supposedly neutral code. Never mind that computers don’t code themselves… yet. If they ever do, it’s going down like iRobot, for sure!
The message from Twitter and its employee, when they feel like showing up to the office, is clear. Free speech for the leftist we, but not for the conservative thee. These leaked videos make that point unequivocally.
Ideological Segregation and Speech as Harm
Other points worth discussing in regard to the video featuring Twitter’s senior engineer are his claims that the right and left cannot exist on the same platform, conservatives tend to be more tolerant than liberals, and conservatives harass and bully others online.
Interestingly, Twitter’s senior engineer says that censoring conservatives is necessary to keep liberals on the platform. Since he also admits that the company isn’t motivated by profit, I think it’s safe to assume that this is largely motivated by ideological preferences of Twitter employees.
So instead of Twitter promoting authentic discourse of the citizenry, it presents the curated, approved musings of the far left. That’s not social engineering or propaganda masquerading as democracy, though.
With conservatives getting the boot to keep the left-wingers, I guess it’s not surprising that this Twitter employee believes that both ends of the political spectrum cannot exist on the same platform. Why is this a bad idea?
For one thing, the more like-minded people are exposed to each other and shielded from dissent the more radical they all become. We already see this playing out in how people tend to follow those who think like them and how the algorithms on social media feed us posts, ads, and news stories that align with our political proclivities. Ideological segregation online will only make this worse.
Another downside is that it’s easier to misunderstand, mock, and dehumanize those who see the world differently when one is never exposed to members of “the other side.” I’m not idealistic enough to think that seeing a tweet that expresses an alternative viewpoint is all we need for political harmony.
I do think that seeing that kind of tweet can get the wheels cranking, at least for some who care more about ideas than ideology. Some thoughtful tweets have made me pause and think about how to argue or reassess parts of my own positions. It’s at least a start.
Finally, I’ve had it with left-leaning politicians calling for violence (ex: Chicago Mayor Lightfoot’s “call to arms” re: Alito’s leaked draft opinion), celebrating riots, and accusing their opponents of treason while the same people claim that conservatives are the bullies online. There are idiots of every ideology that take it too far. That being said, disagreeing with the left does not automatically qualify as bullying or harassment.
I’ve had a few online trolls attack me personally and publicly, and I’d say it’s best to laugh and engage only with ideas and ignore personal slights. But I’m right of center, and those who aren’t are apparently thin-skinned.
According to this Twitter employee, the right can handle the heat, while the left flees the virtual kitchen. Maybe colleges should start teaching by exposing students to high-minded debates with contrary ideas instead of reveling in the “lived experience” of fragile minds. But that’s another post for another day; one that the woke would flag as harmful speech, of course.
Biological and Moral Roots of Ideology
It’s all too easy to scream about how horrible the other side is. Those heartless right-wingers hate everyone on the government’s dole, and those pinko-commie lefties just wanna get high at the taxpayer’s expense. But what if we’re “born that way”?
The fields of genetics and political science began to intersect not too long ago to study whether or not our political beliefs are biologically inheritable. The subfield of political psychology is interested in research questions like how personality and temperament predict political ideology.
Based on some recent research, political ideologies are roughly 30% heritable, which is a relatively high percentage when other factors like environment are added into the equation. Also, conservatives tend to be higher in the psychological trait called conscientiousness, while liberals tend to be higher in a trait called openness. This means that those on the right prefer orderliness, and those on the left seek novelty, among other things.
Professor Jonathan Haidt’s research indicates that among the five aspects of innate human morality, conservatives are likely to value authority, ingroup loyalty, and purity more than liberals. Those on the left value harm and fairness more than the other three values.
Why am I telling you all of this? First, if there is an innate component for our political preferences and moral orientations, it seems rather untoward to malign others simply for having different views. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t challenge them or that we have to concede that they are right. We don’t fault someone born with poor eyesight for being unable to see, although we do offer them glasses.
Furthermore, these findings should encourage us to understand why our political opponents think the way they do. It would appear that ideology alone doesn’t give us the full picture. We must also take in to account one’s temperament and lineage should.
Secondly, the persistence of genes and variations in temperament that correlate with particular political preferences indicate that there must be some biological and social benefit to divergence political orientations. If a society has too many conservatives, it will likely suffer because it will be too weary of outsiders to establish trade relationships with its neighbors. If a society is dominated by too many liberals, it falls apart because it lacks order and stability.
Of course, any political orientation can go too far. That’s why we need the other side to balance us out. The Avengers would be diminished if it weren’t for its inclusion of both Ironman and Captain America.
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