Real-Time Doxxing and the Littlest Musk

Policies to Discourage Stalking Do Not Equal Suppression of Political Speech

“What’s the worst thing the activists ever did to you?” The question I’ve been asked most often is also the one I never answer. Because isn’t it obvious? It’s the times they managed to reach my children.

Yesterday, Twitter CEO Elon Musk suspended nearly a dozen journalists from his site, allegedly for publicly posting the real-time coordinates of his jet. The suspensions came one day after Musk says a car transporting his two-year-old son, X, was trailed by a man who blocked the car and then jumped on the hood.

Booting journalists from Twitter, even temporarily, is a dicey move, since the job they typically do lies at the heart of our most precious freedoms—those enshrined in our First Amendment. And of course, over the previous two weeks, Musk had declared himself a “free-speech absolutist” and offered a team of journalists that included me, led by Bari Weiss and Matt Taibbi, to examine the “Twitter Files”: internal company messages from the past decade. A toddler in pajamas, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Elon, careened around the Twitter HQ unencumbered, alternatively enjoying cartoons on his iPad and watching the journalists with intense curiosity.

We discovered evidence of a secret committee that systemically suppressed the visibility of disfavored speech: Feminists who dared define women as “adult human female,” like Megan Murphy and Kellie-Jay Keen, were kicked off Twitter. But critics of Covid lockdown policy like Physician and Professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, Jay Bhattacharya; and also gay women who pushed back on what they saw as the excesses of LGBTQ activism, like Jaimee Michell, were secretly suppressed. Entire user accounts were blocked from participating on the “trends” homepage or from ever being included in the feeds of those users who did not already follow the accounts. (This was the “Do Not Amplify” marker.)

The Twitter Files remain a vital revelation—evidence of a systemic attempt by Twitter executives to shape public debate and even political outcomes. (Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, among those whose account had been marked with a “Do Not Amplify” marker, was campaigning for re-election during the period her account was suppressed.)

Michell’s organization, ‘Gays Against Groomers’ was placed on a “Trends Blacklist,” curtailing the visibility of her tweets.

For political conservatives, Covid vaccine skeptics, and critics of gender medicine, the revelations came as proof that their voices had been suppressed sub rosa. Proof that Big Tech has been pulling hidden strings to manipulate the political outcomes of an evenly-divided country. Proof that millions of Americans who believed their perspectives were being unfairly disregarded weren’t in the grips of a paranoid fantasy.

Numberless pundits jumped to criticize Musk’s suspensions as no better than the previous regime’s. Novelist Gary Shteyngart quipped on Twitter: “I haven’t seen this much freedom of speech since the Soviet Union.”

For political conservatives, Covid vaccine skeptics, and critics of gender medicine, the revelations came as proof that their voices had been suppressed sub rosa. Proof that millions of Americans who believed their perspectives were being unfairly disregarded weren’t in the grips of a paranoid fantasy.

Journalist Julia Ioffe wrote on Twitter: “Banning speech critical of you under the veil of pseudolegality, all based on the rules you invented yourself to protect yourself from critical speech—well, there’s a reason the owner of this website so enjoyed speaking to Vladimir Putin.”

Musk claims the suspensions accord with Twitter’s new rules, freshly fashioned, to bar people from posting real-time locations of other people. His critics claim this is a pretext for silencing detractors of Musk himself.

Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chided Musk on Twitter: “You’re a public figure. An extremely controversial and powerful one. I get feeling unsafe, but descending into abuse of power + erratically banning journalists only increases the intensity around you. Take a beat and lay off the proto-fascism. Maybe try putting down your phone.”

Daily Mail columnist, Meghan McCain, wrote: “Elon is playing by his own set of rules and banning his critics like the last CEO. But I look forward to the next round of dramatic ‘twitter files’ showing how it’s only leftists who [censor] their critics & Elon is some kind of ‘free speech warrior.’”

Whether Musk is in fact a free-speech warrior or simply a self-interested CEO with incomprehensible power to shape public debate remains to be seen. But those of us who published pieces about the Twitter Files never claimed nor implied he was a “free speech warrior.” Musk himself did.

“What’s the worst thing the activists ever did to you?” The question I’ve been asked most often is also the one I never answer. Because isn’t it obvious? It’s the times they managed to reach my children.

The systemic suppression of anti-Woke speech on a social media platform that sets the news agenda for our largest media companies and hundreds of millions of users remains a critical revelation. When Nikita Khrushchev took power in the Soviet Union and in 1956, began revealing Stalin’s purges of his political enemies and ethnic cleansing, Krushchev did history a service whether or not his regime turned out to be more liberal and freedom-affording than the one it replaced. (Of course, it did; anybody’s would have.)

Musk is a strange man. A consummate jokester and an undeniable genius. He bought a company for which, by his own estimation, he paid three times what it was worth. “At least,” he said, when I and Michael Shellenberger and Bari Weiss asked him about this.

“I thought this was important to the future of civilization,” he said. “I told investors that too…. And I thought this was important to the future of civilization to have a digital Town Square that people thought was fair and a level playing field and that, I don’t know, pro civilization essentially.” He told us he bought Twitter to protect the “expansion of consciousness.”

I pressed him on this. Were President Donald Trump’s tweets really necessary for the “expansion of consciousness?”

Musk is a strange man. A consummate jokester and an undeniable genius. He bought a company for which, by his own estimation, he paid three times what it was worth.

I expected Musk to back off of this claim. He didn’t. “If we are to understand more about, I don't know, the world, then we do have to have like freedom of expression and freedom of speech. If we constrain it, then we are limiting our understanding of the universe or of reality,” he said.

So is suspending the journalists, as Musk did in the last twenty-four hours, the first indication that the new regime is as bad as the old? Doubtful. That Musk is no “free speech warrior” after all? Maybe.

And perhaps Musk will ultimately resort to suppression of opinion he dislikes. In that event, he will face a flood of opprobrium, including from me. But Twitter’s new rule against posting real-time coordinates of famous people is a good one.

“Justice Sotomayor spotted at Koronet’s on Broadway dining alone!” Or, “Plane carrying AOC landing at La Guardia, Terminal B, in 15 minutes!” Does anyone imagine that that wouldn’t compromise their safety? Does anyone doubt that that might encourage some crazy to harm them? Does this kind of real-time doxxing help anyone except stalkers?

Does anyone think our democracy could handle the result of that sort of open season on our public figures? We are unimaginably fortunate that Nancy Pelosi and Bret Kavanaugh weren’t murdered in recent attempts by unhinged men to invade their homes. As Americans, we are already deeply, painfully divided. Something resembling Civil War could easily erupt in this country over the assassination of a Justice or even a figure like Musk.

And no, this has nothing to do with “free speech,” that much misdescribed and battered freedom, best appreciated after it is already lost. The Twitter Files have already shown that ordinary Americans cannot possibly keep pace with technologists’ ability to quash and narrow public dialogue. But there is no “free speech” interest in the real-time trailing of anyone’s precise location.

When the crazies come for your children, you experience something captured by the phrase “she saw red.”

Maybe Elon Musk has ushered in a regime that will ultimately be as bad as the one before. Maybe it will be less bad but still subject to whims of the powerful. But for the first time, we know where to take our grievances: to one man, at last, an identifiable repository of responsibility. No more the hidden committee passing secret judgment. One man, explaining his decision to a critical public. And maybe that man will prove a grave disappointment. But this new policy doesn’t yet indicate that.

Because when the crazies come for your children, you experience something captured by the phrase “she saw red.” And you aren’t a rational thinker any longer, nor really a person. You’re just a mammal, red in tooth and claw. And you will do anything—anything—to protect your young.