@LouisIngenthron scale and network effects are real things. at some level, a firecracker is functionally similar to an atom bomb, but their implications are quite different.

twitter was never a numerically huge platform, but it was and is a disproportionately influential platform. in particular, it was and remains where journalists talk to one another. that is not because they have any affinity for Musk and his message. 1/

@LouisIngenthron it’s because there’s a network effect that is important to their careers. groups of journalists, economists, some academic disciplines tried to coordinate a common exit, but they failed, and the network effect bas reverted to twitter. it is not dehumanizing to point that out. many, many people active on twitter will be glad to tell you they wish they were elsewhere and they detest Musk. network effects are powerful. 2/

@LouisIngenthron the way Musk turns an election is not by persuading or ranting himself. it’s not even by just amplifying people who agree with him and suppressing others, though he does do that and it doesn’t hurt. still, as you say, the numbers there are relatively small, that could only turn a very tight election. 3/

@LouisIngenthron the way a smart operative uses control of Twitter is, in the leadup to the election, to tilt what seems to be the news of the days towards the issue set the public trusts his preferred party on. Twitter exerts tremendous influence over what journalists, always scarce fresh and relevant material, consider to be the newsworthy of the day. 4/

@LouisIngenthron Musk can encourage controversies over crime, immigration, fentanyl, Hunter Biden to dominate strategic news cycles, rather than healthcare, abortion, minimum wage, or labor. He need persuade no one of his own views: the public trusts Rs more than Ds on set A, and issue salience at the time of the election drives marginal voters. You’ve got to stretch your JS Mill pretty hard to call this “free speech”. 5/

@LouisIngenthron of course noble journalists could resist, opt out, refuse to let the twitter controversy du jour drive their coverage. but journalists could have opted out of twitter too in theory by now, but they have not. it turns out they need it. part of what they need it for is to tell them what the news is that they’ll look out-of-touch for failing to cover. 6/

@LouisIngenthron if you don’t cover what everybody else is covering on your beat, why not? is it noble independent judgment? or are you just missing a beat, were you scooped? or maybe you are pushing your own agenda. failing to follow Musk’s agenda setting in the run-up would look a lot like “liberal media censorship”, a charge journalists contort their work frequently to avoid. 7/

@LouisIngenthron is all this guaranteed to succeed? absolutely not. but for the 30B of value Musk has vaporized, he does hold an important location of influence. depending on factors outside his control it might not be enough, but in an election as close as the last two, Musk could easily deliver the deciding margin. 8/

@LouisIngenthron not by “free speech”, but by the same kind of manipulation and gaming campaign operatives on all sides exploit and have normalized, attack surfaces that we to our collective discredit have failed to protect (because our politicians and the consultants to whom they dump our donations rely upon attacking them). /fin