Transparent example of what we have termed 'platform illiberalism' -- an illiberal platform and an illiberal gov joining forces to support each other and their shared illiberal project journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Justin Hendrix@justinhendrix.bsky.social · 7mo ago

"The United States has directed every American embassy and consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda and endorses Elon Musk’s X as an 'innovative' tool to help do it."

The final version of my paper with Clara Iglesias Keller @claraigk.bsky.social and Rob Gorwa @gorwa.ca on Elon Musk, X, and what we call platform illiberalism is now out in New Media & Society, open access journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The Great Sysop: Elon Musk, X, and the emergence of platform illiberalism - João C. Magalhães, Clara Iglesias Keller, Robert Gorwa, 2026

This article discusses Twitter’s mutation into X under Elon Musk, analyzing its shift from a mainstream platform to a far-right-aligned space. Through a novel c...

journals.sagepub.com

Not much to see here, just Mark Zuckerberg making sure that Stephen Miller, of all people, greenlights Facebook's new hiring policies. Gift link to this excellent NYT piece: www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/u...

It's so weird that in the end Twitter became state media

Passively compounding wealth creates more inequality than anything else IMO. If the stock market didn’t exist, Elon Musk would be just a generationally wealthy dudebro, maybe a co investor in his brother Kimbal’s restaurant

in retrospect, one of the funniest headlines of all time

As @peterpomerantsev says, the time for rebuilding better social media is NOW: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Elon Musk and the new world order: the hijacking of the global conversation

How can we publicly debate policy in the face of the rising – and polarising – influence of the X owner and others whose only aim is to serve themselves

theguardian.com

Many are fleeing major platforms for services like this one. I have an essay on two great books (by @paulgowder.bsky.social + @ntnsndr.in) that offer historically-rooted visions for democratic, social networks that we need to consider in the era of Bluesky and beyond... jacobin.com/2024/12/inte...

Can Democracy Survive Online?

The dream of a democratic web has turned into a nightmare of moderation crises, content mines, and billionaire overlords. Rebuilding digital spaces for meaningful participation in a post-X future will...

jacobin.com

Posting here for the first time to share my reaction to Meta's autocratic turn, for @techpolicypress.bsky.social

Tech Policy Press@techpolicypress.bsky.social · 2y ago

There is nothing normal about a company that helps define what almost half of humanity sees on their screens explicitly promising to support a far-right leader, writes João C. Magalhães.