How has Elon Musk reshaped political discourse and how much power does he have compared to the media barons of the past? Andrew Mueller explores the relationship between technology companies and governments, with David Gilbert of ‘Wired’, author and technologist Ansgar Baums, disinformation researcher Heidi Tworek and space-defence expert Clayton Swope. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In 1897, the illustrator Frederick Remington was sent to Cuba by the New York Journal to cover roiling local tensions, which would in due course lead to conflict between the United States and Spain.
Upon arrival, Remington found no indication of imminent tumult.
He cabled as much to the Journal's proprietor, William Randolph Hearst.
Hearst replied, you furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war.
This legendary and possibly apocryphal instruction is cited by way of demonstration that buccaneering tycoons have always used their media interests to influence events.
But the modern tech CEOs who oversee the big social media platforms are doing something different and potentially more dangerous.
In the United Kingdom in recent weeks, disinformation created and disseminated in real time in response to a rolling news story, especially on X, prompted riots.
Hundreds of people will serve prison sentences because they believed something they read on X, which they felt licensed them to burn a migrant hostel, hurl bricks at police, or loot a pie shop.
It is unknowable whether it would have made much difference if these woebegone duncers had known it wasn't true.
But it is certain that X's owner, Elon Musk, did less than he might have to help.
Musk also conducted a glitch riddled online love in with Donald Trump and rowed publicly with Thierry Breton, the EU commissioner responsible for enforcing the EU's Digital Services Act.
Do national governments fully understand how powerful these platforms and their proprietors have become?
Are we seeing a new kind of diplomacy developed to deal with them?
And what should be done about the tech equivalent of a rogue state?
This is the foreign desk.
If what happened in the UK happens again in a specific country, I can very easily see some countries making a decision.
Okay, that's enough.
We're not having this anymore.
No, banning Twitter from your country is a very difficult thing to do given the prevalence of VPNs, but they can at least limit its reach.
Many German politicians too have the belief that in order to protect democracy, you might sometimes need to curtail speech.