But that, alas, is entirely untrue. In reality, Musk is a man of strong opinions: Not merely an uber-capitalist, he is also a very right-wing libertarian full of odd anxieties strong enough to produce plenty of posts about Whites and their “civilization” disappearing and, when in a really good mood, a greeting that looks like a perfect imitation of a fascist salute. That would all be bad enough. But Musk has also taken to promoting people he personally likes politically and culturally, for instance those glorifying, lobbying and making excuses for Israel.
If this is a “town square,” then it’s one where you need a mic to be heard, and that mic is under the control of a biased and overbearing mayor and his buddies. Or, as Musk’s own team has put it, X users have “freedom of speech but not of reach.”
On the other hand, the platform also systematically suppressed whatever – and whoever – the owner does not like. Much – but by no means all – of this de facto censorship is imposed by what X itself has euphemistically described as “a more reasonable, proportionate and effective moderation process,” that is, often by massive demotion (deboosting) rather than direct banning. If you say things that Musk, his ideological chums, his business partners and his financiers do not like, X is less likely to just kick you out – although that option is always there, too – than to quietly put you in a tight, soundproof box. You may think you are speaking to others, but X makes sure your voice reaches almost no one. Let freedom ring! But in silent mode, please.
There is no topic on X where all of the above is more in evidence than Israel. Or to be more precise: Palestine and the endless series of crimes Israelis and their accomplices are committing against Palestinians, from violent, often murderous dispossession to apartheid to de facto mass kidnapping to mass torture (including rape) to ethnic cleansing by genocide.
Recently, Grok – X’s own in-house AI – has revealed that critics of Israeli crimes are being suppressed massively. Their reach is throttled by 80 to almost 100 percent of what it would be otherwise. Prompted with a specific phrase, which X users have shared widely, Grok has been delivering detailed insights into how the X algorithm censors those who mention, and protest against, Israel’s current Gaza genocide, its all-purpose brutality and rogue-state wars of aggression against Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, its habit of assassinations, including of other countries’ scientific and political elites (as in Iran and Yemen) or the perverse influence it exerts on US and, in general, Western politics. According to at least one usually well-informed observer, this is a mass campaign, with Elon Musk “censoring hundreds of millions of people for a foreign [that is, Israeli] government.” In return, Musk’s own customers are calling him “a huge threat to freedom of speech” and “a traitor.”
Politically those targeted by this X repression campaign are as different as it gets. They include idiosyncratic very-right-wingers, such as Candace Ownes, as well as generally left-wing voices, such as the journalists and dissidents Max Blumenthal and Ali Abunimah.
Full disclosure: They also include yours truly (on the left of the spectrum, too). And it’s a fairly representative case, too: The suppression of the X account “@TarikCyrilAmar,”as reported by Grok, is massive and comprehensive, including hiding it and its activity, and, in general reaching 78 to 85 percent. But what is most typical is the big fat lie used to justify this censorship: that somehow the account’s open and honest criticism of Israel and its crimes and explicit anti-Zionist/anti-fascist position overlaps with “anti-semitism.” This is the core smear used by all defenders of Israel and its genocide: that to be against these crimes and the state committing them with no end in sight, indicates “anti-semitism.”
This daft lie has long lost all credibility among those with at least half a brain. Except in Musk world, where it is still good enough to shape what X users are not only allowed to say but also to hear. Both active and passive freedom of speech are a joke there. And all that for Israel.
There are claims now surfacing on X that somehow this scandal is not quite real, that Grok wasn’t delivering real data but a mere simulation. That seems very, very far-fetched and is likely to turn out to have been yet another untruth. For one thing, X has a proven record of suppressing what Israel doesn’t like. Last year, for instance, Grok itself was suspended when it called the Gaza Genocide just that, a genocide. Clearly, Musk’s AI had gotten a little to perspicacious – and honest – for its masters. In October 2023, while Israel was launching its genocide – and speaking about it proudly – X purged hundreds of Palestinian accounts, depriving the victims of yet another way to reach out and, thus, contributing to Israel’s policy of siege, blockade, and black-out.
What is clear is that his motives are of decidedly secondary importance. What matters is the atrocious moral failure – not his only one, but his worst. And ironically, Musk, who prides himself on being a bit of a nonconformist and maverick, is all too representative of the West’s rotten elites as a whole. If only he were more exceptional!