The Bird & The Technoking tells the story of Elon Musk, Twitter, their head on collision in 2022, and most importantly, makes the case that no one individual should be allowed the power of owning a social media platform. Few mergers and acquisitions are as culturally and politically important as Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, and I have always found the media coverage of Twitter post-takeover lacking. Almost all the discussion centres on Musk himself, or take a journalists’ perspective on events when the meat of the story is how we as a society have ceded immense power to a single, quite strange, man.
Twitter is not just a frivolous site for jokes, it is the de facto digital public square. As much as our discourse – whether political, cultural, or interpersonal – would be greatly improved by moving off of social media we cannot distract ourselves with how things should be at the expense of missing how things really are. Whether we like it or not, modern life is increasingly digital. And the digital can be owned and controlled to a degree unimaginable for any other social space, even in the most paranoid dictatorship.
That controllability is the core danger of social media. And our societies handed the keys to one of our key social platforms to the highest bidder without the slightest thought of how it might impact us. Can there be true freedom of speech when a specific individual has not just the abstract right but the concrete ability to control what is said by whom on a platform? I say no, what do you say?
The Bird and The Technoking then, is meant as a wake up call. A way to highlight the political choices we have made without thinking, as well as the political choices Elon Musk and his colleagues make every day when they decide what is allowed to be posted and who is allowed to post. We have so far largely ignored the political power of social media, but ignoring it does not make it go away.
Ultimately my conclusion is that Elon Musk is less dangerous than his worst critics make him out to be. He seems almost exclusively interested in himself, and uses his almost limitless power on the platform mostly for self-aggrandisement. But like any king, the Technoking of Twitter has incredible power which can be used for good or ill. While the fact that the current Technoking is simply self-absorbed rather than actively destructive is a relief to us now, it does not exonerate that form of governance. And make no mistake, Musk may be the only one willing to flaunt his power over social media, but Mark Zuckerberg and the other social media barons are not less powerful, just more subtle.
The first chapter establishes Elon Musk, with a special focus on his early career. The aim is to explain how the conventional narrative that Musk is an unrivalled business genius is not true. It goes on to make the case that Musk’s career does not make him an ideal candidate to own and operate Twitter.
It opens on Musk’s time in Silicon Valley in the late 90’s and make sthe case that his business genius is overdone. It focuses on how diligently and consistently Musk has tried and often succeeded in shaping the narrative around his career. For example, Musk being a founder of Tesla and PayPal are both half-truths but it is also the dominant narrative. Musk has also engaged in dubious ventures like buying up his cousins’ company through Tesla, and of course his settlement with the securities and exchange commission over the infamous “funding secured” affaire.
The second chapter is a brief history of Twitter, what it is and how it got popular ending before Musk takes over. The chapter’s core argument is that Twitter really is the global digital town hall for the simple reason that many people consider it to be.
It argues that what has made Twitter Twitter is the users rather than the corporation which bore the platform’s name. Most quintessential Twitter features like # and @ mentions were conceived by users rather than Twitter developers. It also makes the point that Twitter as a platform had the luck of being around at a tumultuous political moment which elevated its importance. Being the first port of call for politicians and journalists was an incredible edge in the time of the Arab spring and the first Trump presidency.
Chapter three charts the history of social media going from genuinely pro-social to sometimes anti-social as content algorithms have crowded out small scale human-to-human interaction. It argues that social media platforms have a lot of power, which the tech industry is careless with at best, and more often than not, destructive with.
It uses the case studies of the rise of Mark Sargent and his flat earth movement on YouTube and the rise of Andrew Tate on TikTok to show how the current technical model and business model of contemporary social media is not just impotent in stopping bad actors, but actively encourages and rewards them with social prestige and cold hard cash.
Chapter four describes some of the ways in which Musk has used Twitter since he took over, and describes some of the ways he has compromised his stated ideals. It also argues that Musk’s ownership laid bare just how much power social media moguls have, and just how few constraints there are to using that power against the interest of users and society at large.
It examines the decisions made under the Musk regime to show how little attention has been paid to the societal outcomes reforms like reinstating banned accounts and removing verified checkmarks have had. Makes the case that in the messy and often contradictory initiatives made under Musk has only one common thread: stroking Musk’s ego.
The final chapter notes that Musk and Twitter is not a one off, the model of a single individual having unfettered power over a social media is endemic to the industry. It makes the case that a democratic society can and should impose limits on social media companies to make sure that the digital public square is genuinely public and pro-social.
It proposes some different models for social media governance, and makes the case that Musk’s entry into politics is a clear case of unacceptable conflict of interest.