Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1466490
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 1 MAY 2022 OPINION 10 Raphael Vassallo OPINION Shocked at Elon Musk buying Twitter? Then you should also be 'shocked' at… … well, 'Malta's entire eco- nomic model', I suppose. And to be honest, I'm half tempted to just stop there: if nothing else, to set a whole new world record for 'shortest Sun- day opinion column ever pub- lished' (to be filed alongside all the other 'world records' we've been setting recently: e.g., "World's Youngest Member of Parliament"; "World's Most Corrupt Country"; etc. etc.) But let's face it: if I were to actually sign off, right here and now… it would be just as gim- micky (and farcical) as those other 'world records' I just mentioned, above. So without further ado… onto the rest of the article. Let me start with this: at the time of writing, my Facebook feed seems to be neatly divid- ed into two, equally vociferous categories of (mostly, anyway) hot-headed, tub-thumping fa- natics. OK: nothing 'new' there, I am the first to admit. But what I find intriguing – if not down- right mystifying – is what they're all getting so worked up about, this time. That is to say: Elon Musk's decision to buy out Twitter, for a measly E44 billion. Can you believe it? Roughly half the comments I'm seeing, right now, are by people who feel extraordinarily 'outraged' by that particular corporate ac- quisition: in some cases, even to the extent of cancelling (or threatening to cancel) their own Twitter accounts. Conversely, the other half seem to be comments written directly by Elon Musk him- self; or by his own corporate PR department. You know: making him out like some kind of 'Avenging Crusader', on a mission from God to 'put the Freedom part back into Free Speech' (and other, equally idi- otic drivel…). Hmmm. OK, maybe there's something I'm just not seeing, in all this; but to be perfectly frank, neither of those reac- tions seems very rational to me. For starters: since when has it become so very compulsory for absolutely everyone out there (and his dog, and his dog's puppies, etc.) to even have any kind of opinion whatsoever… about 'the spending habits of the filthy, filthy rich'? And such strongly-felt opin- ions, too! Because… well, this is the part I don't actually get, when it comes to the crunch. That people would be vaguely interested in Elon Musk's latest shopping spree, I can more or less understand. It does, after all, have certain ramifications for issues such as 'censorship'; 'freedom of expression', 'cancel culture', and so on…. But then again: so did Rupert Murdoch's ownership of so much of the British press, until so recently; and so had Silvio Berlusconi's political stran- glehold over the Italian media landscape, back in the 1990s… and so, for that matter, does the political ownership of tele- vision stations in Malta, all the way down to this day…. In fact, while Elon Musk might certainly be the wealth- iest oligarch to have ever dab- bled in media-ownership, by some distance… he is not ex- actly the first, is he now? Which, naturally, brings me to the starkest irony in all this: i.e., that all these concerns are being raised on… wait for it… Facebook, no less! You know: another world-dominating so- cial media platform, that (in case nobody's noticed) is: a) also owned by a 'filthy rich gazillionaire'; b) also wields massive discre- tionary power over who can, and cannot, comment on its boards; and above all; c) unlike Elon Musk, Zuck- erberg has already spent years abusing that disproportionate power of his (not to mention his access to, and exploitation of, Facebook users' personal data) on a hitherto unimagina- ble scale. So… isn't it somewhat slightly late in the day, to be suddenly waking up to this reality only now? And even then: only in a case where – at the time of writing, anyway – the acquisi- tion itself hasn't even techni- cally happened yet…? Meanwhile, there is a second, entirely understandable aspect – albeit on an emotional (and therefore, entirely irrational) level – to this same kneejerk reaction. After all, some people out there do use platforms like 'Twitter' – in fact, there is even a word for them in the English language: 'twits' – so it follows that they would consider any change to Twitter's ownership structure, to be of direct con- cern to themselves. (Much in the same way that some people had likewise stopped buying 'Rummo' pasta, the moment they realised it was imported by Keith Schembri). The problem there, however, is that… well, it's the same as the first, I suppose. Why only now? And why only Twitter, anyway? I mean: didn't the same people get just as upset – and for the same reason, too! – when the private bank that they'd been using for 20 years, was sud- denly purchased by an inter- national global banking giant named HSBC? Or whenever their mobile phone (or Inter- net, or both) service provider is just gobbled up, from one mo- ment to the next, by precise- ly the same sort of corporate takeover? Or heck… even when their favourite neighbourhood restaurant is sold off – just like that! – to be redeveloped in- to… well, what do you know? Yet another goddamn block of flats? OK: now I will 'stop myself there'… because my mind is suddenly reeling with exam- ples of all sorts of other, equal- ly mundane business transac- tions – mostly of the kind that are conducted on the interna- tional stock market, each and every single day – that could (with only a little imagination) be broadly compared to Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter. Since when has it become so very compulsory for absolutely everyone out there (and his dog, and his dog's puppies, etc.) to even have any kind of opinion whatsoever… about 'the spending habits of the filthy, filthy rich'?