Musk’s interactions on Twitter embolden white supremacists and other toxic users in the name of ‘free speech’ Elon Musk rarely states his own political views outright on X (formerly Twitter), other than to make vague nods in favour of “centrism” and “free speech” – one of his favourite topics – or to adopt a general “anti-woke” attitude. The owner of X has denounced the “woke mind virus” and even taken a dig at the free online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, calling it “Wokipedia” (presumably because of its editors’ attempts to maintain fact-based objectivity). This “anti-wokism” is bad enough, of course. It’s a position that clearly animates the American right at its core and all the way to its extremes (even if some who style themselves centrist or liberal have also adopted an “anti-woke” stance in recent years). A case in point: Florida’s notoriously authoritarian governor and Republican primary presidential candidate Ron DeSantis loves to boast that “Florida is where woke goes to die.” But Musk sometimes goes further than broad-brushed “anti-woke” sentiments – for example, in highlighting supposed threats of genocide against white people. He is also a very open supporter of racist commentator and ex-Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson, a key figure in the American mainstreaming of the white supremacist ‘great replacement theory’. Musk’s interactions with toxic X users also do much to directly encourage, draw attention to and imply some degree of agreement with conspiracy theories, as well as anti-LGBTQ and antisemitic speech. To find these more damning tweets, one often has to look at Musk’s replies rather than his original posts. For example, under a conspiratorial tweet that reads in part “The Justice Dept. is actively undermining the prosecution of the president’s son while seeking to incarcerate his political rival. Biden is destroying the legitimacy of our democratic system”, Musk simply replied: “True.” He also regularly interacts with the conservative Christian ‘satire’ account The Babylon Bee, which is notorious for its anti-trans stance. Under a recent post headlined “Woman Driving Alone in Carpool Lane Claims Preferred Pronoun is ‘They’”, he replied with a laughing emoji. White supremacists Even more concerningly, Musk recently quote-tweeted a Dutch white supremacist and far-right influencer who last year tweeted: “White lives matter and it’s ok to be white. Stop being afraid to say that.” The tweet Musk quoted was part of the recent white supremacist #BanTheADL hashtag campaign – an attack on the Anti-Defamation League, a US organisation that focuses on combating antisemitism. The hashtag trended on the Labor Day holiday weekend in the US, which is also when three neo-Nazi groups held hate-filled demonstrations in Orlando, Florida, including outside the Disney World theme park and resort. (…) Even as he threatened to sue the ADL and indicated he would share records of the ADL’s communications with X with hate account Libs of TikTok, Musk asserted he was “against antisemitism of any kind”. But if Musk is genuinely concerned about right-wing political violence, there’s no trace of this concern in his social media. Instead, he gives direct encouragement to white supremacists and other purveyors of hate in a way that can only further embolden the far right and their fellow travellers. LibsOfTikTok focuses primarily on anti-LGBTQ and especially anti-trans hatred, and – as I noted in last week’s openDemocracy column – institutions targeted by the account have faced bomb threats. Musk’s friendliness with LibsOfTikTok underscores that antisemitism, misogyny, conspiracy theories, and anti-LGBTQ animus are all of a piece, as was also evident in neo-Nazi demonstrations that took place in Florida on Saturday.
via openddemocracy: How Elon Musk is using X to fuel right-wing hate in the US