The Nurse and the Chancellor

Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter has set the cat among the pigeons (or perhaps that should be the Mountain Bluebirds, for that is the bird the Twitter logo is based on) with concerns raised that in the name of free speech, Musk’s version of the social media platform will mean less moderation and the reinstatement of previously banned individuals like Donald Trump, Katie Hopkins, and Steve Bannon.

A Mountain Bluebird

Musk has described himself as “a free speech absolutist,” which infers that Twitter will indeed reduce moderation and reinstate those previously banned Twitterers; absolutism suggests that nothing is off limits, and that in the name of free speech, anything goes.

Elon Musk is paying $45billion for Twitter. Picture: Financial Times

What constitutes free speech depends, to an extent, on who is saying what, and who is hearing it. One man’s free speech is another’s hate speech; free speech is not the right to say whatever you like about whatever you like, whenever you like.

Just as free speech must allow the publication and promulgation of views that are not universally popular, so it must also bar hate speech, viz the incitement to violence and racial, sexual, and religious discrimination. Musk’s absolutist stance does not automatically infer that Twitter will no longer moderate or remove such posts, as some are claiming, although the extent to which Twitter’s policies in this area changes, if it changes at all, will no doubt be closely monitored.

Social media allows anyone to express an opinion on absolutely anything; one might say it positively encourages and provokes people to express opinions on any subject, even those of which they are particularly ignorant.

A lack of knowledge of a subject is no bar to expressing an opinion, it actually seems to be a positive incentive for some people. Thus, Bob, a retired bus driver from Barrelmouth-on-The-Woe, feels perfectly comfortable – entitled and obliged, even – to post his views on subjects as diverse as gender identity, Brexit, covid, Partygate, the tax affairs of the Chancellor’s wife, or the relative merits of Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo. Funnily enough though, as soon as someone like Gary Lineker or Gary Neville posts an opinion on politics, Bob will tell them to “stick to football,” on which basis of course, Bob ought only to post on the subject of bus driving. *

For many people, being an ex-professional footballer means you can't comment on politics

Bob is wrong about the Garys, they have every right to make comments on any subject they wish, as does Bob. I suppose that Bob’s point would be that Gary Lineker (8.4m followers), and Gary Neville (5.1m) have much more reach than Bob (102 followers), but there is plenty of balance to views that Bob finds objectionable.

Meanwhile, Bob will post his views on topics like covid – perhaps on the effectiveness of masks or vaccines – and will do so in a thread started by an expect (an epidemiologist or virologist, perhaps), and will challenge that expert’s view. If Bob and his ilk are themselves challenged, they will doubtless claim that they have “done their research,” by which they mean they have searched online until they have found a random article from someone who is probably equally as unqualified in the subject, but which supports their point of view. This, they believe, adequately rebuts the argument of an eminently qualified and experienced expert. Google allows everyone to believe that they are an expert on a subject from reading a single webpage. In 1984, George Orwell wrote that “ignorance is strength” – he might equally have said that ignorance is knowledge.

Another interesting Twitter phenomenon relates to what might be called poverty shaming, whereby anyone who is finding it hard to makes ends meet is instantly blamed and shamed for their situation. A recent BBC news item about a part-time nurse who cannot afford enough food for her and her three children, meaning that she sometimes has to go without, provoked a predictably hostile response from some Twitter users. “She should go full-time, then“ wrote one. Another asked where the children’s father was, another suggested that she could adequately feed her family for 50p per day by eating nothing but Asda’s budget pasta, and that they would love to know what she spent her wages on, implying that they were being spent on fripperies rather than essentials.

Similarly, despite the cost of living crisis and the spiralling house prices that make it increasingly difficult for first time buyers, Kirsty Allsop thinks that giving up Netflix and take-away coffee will enable people to save enough to get on the property ladder, and plenty agree with her. I do take her point; giving up Netflix and a Starbucks a couple times a week ought to save you enough for a deposit on a one bedroom flat in my area – provided you’re prepared to wait 35 years.

People in the situation the BBC’s nurse find themselves in are often berated for owning a flat-screen TV (is there any other kind these days?), a smartphone (increasingly an essential rather than a luxury), and having a broadband connection (try working from home or having your children do their school homework without broadband). Perhaps our nurse and her children should come home from work and school and entertain themselves with books and board games until the lack of natural light forces them to go to bed sustained only by 50 grams of plain pasta.

Those who criticise our nurse and her ilk are probably just one pay packet away from being in the same situation themselves. The poverty shamed often find themselves in their situation through little fault of their own. Perhaps they have separated from their partner and had to reduce their working hours to look after their children, and now they are faced – as are we all – by an increase in the cost of living unlike any we have seen for fifty years. The poverty shamed are often depicted as feckless wastrels, demanding to be provided with luxury on benefits, but many are honest and hardworking, and have just fallen on hard times. That fact that 40% of Universal Credit claimants work FULL-TIME suggests that the problem lies elsewhere, and as costs rise and wages don’t keep up, this issue will get worse.

Oddly, those who criticise our impoverished nurse are equally likely to laud multi-billionaires like Elon Musk and Chancellor of The Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, and to admire the fabulously wealthy and their canny manipulation of tax laws to reduce their liabilities.

It has been suggested that instead of paying $44 billion for Twitter, Musk would have better used his money to give every one in America a million dollars; he would still have had $7 billion left. That was never going to happen, but now he has spent that money he will probably want to see a return on his investment, will we see some changes to the platform, like the introduction of adverts, or a fee to skip them, as is the case with Spotify and YouTube? (Edit: It has been pointed out to me that this maths is way, way out! To give everybody in America $1m, you'd need over 300 trillion Dollars. In my defence, these weren't my maths, but I should have checked rather than take them at face value. All a bit irrelevant in that no one is ever going to give everyone in a country a slice - no matter how large or small - of their fortune).

Finally, for those concerned about changes to Twitter, especially the platform’s policy on free speech, I leave you with these words from Curtis Stigers: “Oh damn now twitter isn’t gonna be friendly & warm & loving anymore.”

* Bob is a fictitious character, of course, but I'm sure we've all come across Bobs.