Billionaire-owned WaPo complains about billionaires who own social media
That washington post, A newspaper owned by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos published an op-ed by former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao calling for regulation “to prevent rich people from controlling our communication channels” — without a trace of irony.
Every major social media platform is already owned by billionaires, including Saudi Arabian Prince Al Waleed bin Talal, and this has been the case since the early years of these platforms.
It wasn’t until self-proclaimed free speech absolutist Elon Musk became Twitter’s largest shareholder that the outcry from regime elites, which includes Pao’s article, began.
Horrified at the prospect of Musk influencing Twitter, Pao immediately argues that social media companies are free to “put some limits” on expression (as Pao notoriously did himself as CEO of the previously free-speech-friendly Reddit), while he worries that Musk will use his influence to relax those boundaries.
Jack Dorsey and Twitter staff
Pao argues that Musk’s influence would represent a “major step backwards” from Jack Dorsey’s heroic achievements of eliminating “hate and harassment,” adding “labels for misleading content,” and “banning.”[ing] Donald Trump.”
Free speech, Pao argues, harms “marginalized races and ethnic groups” while empowering the privileged.
The Reddit CEO concludes that the government needs to enact regulations that “prevent rich people from controlling our communication channels” and allow CEOs to feel more secure about making changes to their platforms that affect their hate customers.
Such regulations, Pao argues, would “enable executives to do things they know should be done but are reluctant to attempt for fear of political backlash or a revolt by some users.”
Pao is familiar with alienating a platform’s user base. Her tenure at Reddit, which saw the platform quickly undermine its founding commitments to free speech, was met with massive backlash and user boycotts. Now Pao wants CEOs to be able to blame government regulations for unpopular decisions.
It was Pao’s warning about “rich people who control communication channels” that drew social media attention because the former Reddit CEO posted her opinion on the Washington Post – a communications channel owned by a billionaire.
“This is an actual sentence published by the last week Washington PostJeff Bezos’ newspaper,” marveled journalist Glenn Greenwald.
This is an actual sentence published by the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos’ newspaper, last week: pic.twitter.com/JgKsoT8i1a
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 14, 2022
How stupid do you have to be to think that journalists — who work at Bloomberg and Bezos-owned WPost or Comcast or CNN — worry about billionaires controlling the media ().
They’re just petrified that the *fake* billionaire, one who might not censor for them, could rule.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2022
“How stupid do you have to be to think that journalists — who work at Bloomberg and Bezos-owned WPost or Comcast or CNN — are worried about billionaires controlling the media,” Greenwald asked later in the day.
“They’re just petrified that the *fake* billionaire who might not be censoring for them could rule.”
Allum Bokhari is Senior Technology Correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/04/15/billionaire-owned-wapo-complains-about-billionaires-owning-social-media/ Billionaire-owned WaPo complains about billionaires who own social media
