Caught between a Musk and a hard place

You can tell what sort of geek I am by how I spend my “free” time. And today, I spent far too much time watching a (UK) parliamentary committee. Why? The Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee had representatives from TikTok, X and Meta in to talk about misinformation and harmful algorithms.

Oh, yeah, this is good living.

The most interesting element was the guy from X: Wifredo Fernandez, senior director for government affairs, X. Of all the jobs I'd least like to have, it's defending the worst excesses of the new, improved “free speech friendly” Twitter in front of parliamentary scrutiny.

Watching him squirm and squirm again as horrific, disturbing messages were read out, knowing that he had to defend the lack of action on them otherwise Musk would fire him, but also that what was being read out was unacceptable to any human with an ounce of decency was riveting stuff.

Emily Darlington MP: "This c*nt is openly screwing everyone and he doesn't care why we rise up and openly shoot Kier Starmer as he needs to step down or the people of the UK will force to if not I will uh 🤬🤬🤬". Blue tick account. Is that within your rules?

Fernandez: Uh, I would have our teams review that

*laughter from the audience*

The serious point here, of course, is that by allowing statements like this without consequence, Musk's service is changing the tone of civil discourse in the country. And we're feeling the impact of that already – but not as strongly as our friends in the US.

Social media is not operate from culture. It is part of culture. By controlling part of social media,. Musk now has control over parts of the culture.

A sobering thought.

Anyway, you can watch the whole thing here: