To the Twitter End

Politix

Politics, News Commentary, News

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2022

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Elon Musk’s Twitter seems unsustainable. At the same time, with all of his apparent grievances and conflicts of interest, Musk now owns digital megatons of user data, which he can abuse to settle political scores or to appease the governments that his other companies depend on for revenue. He recently leaked internal communications, including the personal emails of a Congressman, putting us in dangerous territory. It’s almost like we’re in a race to see how much damage Musk can do before everything falls apart. But what happens when Musk outlasts his critics? How valuable is it to the global consortium of reactionary, wealthy people to keep Twitter alive, in right-wing hands, churning out propaganda, disinformation, and hatred? Kara Swisher, host of Pivot and On with Kara Swisher, joins to talk about how this all ends, if it ends at all.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Dreadheads. We're opening up the old holiday mailbag and want to hear your burning questions.
0:06.2	We've done episodes over the last several months on everything from the election to COVID,
0:10.4	to climate, to top-gun. But now we want to hear from you. Let's talk about politics,
0:15.7	technology, movies, music, anything you want to know. Send your questions to our producer,
0:20.2	Olivia at Martinez at Crooked.com and we'll answer some of them on the show.
0:25.4	The Crooked Store just launched a bunch of new merch inspired by your favorite Crooked media
0:30.8	podcasts, reminding you to unplug, reconnect, and get festive. New items include a log-off ornament
0:37.3	and a nog-save America mug. Every order from the Crooked Store will support vote-save
0:42.2	Americas every last vote fund to make sure every voice can be heard in the face of unprecedented
0:47.6	voter suppression. Head to Crooked.com slash store to check out the new arrivals now.
0:55.4	Hi, everyone. Welcome to Positively Dreadful with me, your host, Brian Boiler.
1:17.7	So you may remember an episode we did a few weeks back with the journalist, Frank Four,
1:22.2	where he and I tried to kind of anticipate what the Elon Musk take over of Twitter might look
1:27.4	like. This was back in October just before Musk completed his purchase. So it was all hypothetical
1:33.9	and in keeping with the theme of the show, all the scenarios we chewed over were not great.
1:40.4	On one end of the spectrum, we imagined something like benign neglect, where Musk would quickly
1:46.8	grow bored or frustrated and then delegate management of the company, or maybe even resell it at
1:51.6	a loss. To real nightmare scenarios, Musk with all of his apparent grievances and conflicts of
1:58.3	interest was about to come in ownership of digital megatons of user data. What if he decided to
2:05.5	abuse that power to settle political scores or to appease the governments that his other companies
2:11.2	depend on for revenue? So it's only been just over a month, but I think we were right to worry,
2:18.1	at least to some extent, because it's already been a wild run. In that time, Musk has fired
	...

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