As regular readers know, Bari Weiss is one of three reporters who were given access to internal materials at Twitter for a series of reports collectively called the Twitter Files. There were five parts to the Twitter Files, two of which were written by Bari Weiss. She wrote about the site’s habit of shadowbanning people on December 8 and she wrote about Twitter’s decision to ban Trump (despite concluding he hadn’t banned TOS) on December 12.

So last night when Musk banned a group of journalists one of my first reactions was What is Bari Weiss going to make of this? Here she is taking heat for supposedly doing PR for Elon Musk and now Musk seems to be doing something not terribly different from what the old Twitter was doing. I tried to make this point in passing last night:

Lord knows I won’t miss Keith Olberman or Matt Binder but they deserve an explanation for what led to this ban. Otherwise it looks like new Twitter is just making things up, no different than the previous version of Twitter.

This morning Weiss came down pretty much where I hoped she would.

The old regime at Twitter governed by its own whims and biases and it sure looks like the new regime has the same problem. I oppose it in both cases. And I think those journalists who were reporting on a story of public importance should be reinstated.

— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 16, 2022

I don't need to dwell on how mesmerizing it is to watch those journalists who defended—even celebrated!—Twitter's bans under the old regime under the guise of "safety" now call it censorship, and say it infringes on freedom of expression. It did then as it does now.

— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 16, 2022

If you follow the link in that tweet above, it really does look like Weiss sort of called this potential danger hours before Musk banned a bunch of journalists.

To hear Musk tell it, his motivation is obvious: It’s about saving the world.

“I’m not going to spend $44 billion to reinstate a satire blog,” Musk said about the Babylon Bee, which had been banned from Twitter in March 2022. “I did it because I was worried about the future of civilization,” he told us late one night.

As far as Musk sees things, “birth rates are plummeting, the thought police are gaining power, and even having an opinion is enough to be shunned. We are trending in a bad direction.”

He says he wants to transform Twitter from a social media platform distrusted and despised by at least half the country into one widely trusted by most Americans. To have it fulfill its highest mission: that of a digital town square where all ideas can be heard, and the best will win out…

Musk promises that the future of Twitter will be a “level playing field” and that it will be “consistent and transparent.” He believes “the algorithm should be open-source, so people can critique it.” It sounds very good.

But if the story of Old Twitter is about the biases and prejudices and power trips of the company’s former overlords, the question is what Musk will now do with the powerful tools they created?…

Because all of those people tend to move and think as one, there is something refreshing about Musk barging into the Twitter Tower on Market Street and turning over the tables. But I’m not sure anyone should have that kind of power.

I agree with every bit of this starting with Musk’s assessment of where we are. The thought police really are gaining power, not just here via the woke chowderheads but in China, in Russia, in lots of places where any government runs a state media. Globally I’m not sure that freedom is winning right now, partly because of these new tools that didn’t exist 50 years ago. Yes, there were police states 50 years ago but with the advent of computers and cameras and cell phones and facial recognition we’re in a different world now and I don’t think most Americans think about the danger that presents nearly enough.

Unlike many of Musk’s critics, I think his heart is in the right place. I genuinely believe he sees breaking up the groupthink as important and necessary as well as satisfying. But Weiss is right that these tools present a dreadful temptation to whoever is in charge of them. Once you have this much power over who gets to speak, can anyone resist it?

A couple of pop culture moments came to mind as I was thinking about it. First, the ending of The Dark Knight in which Batman sets up a computer system that can spy on everyone’s phones and see and hear everything happening everywhere in the city all at once. “This is too much power for one person.”

Twitter isn’t quite that powerful, but when you consider the number of government figures, pop stars, movie stars, influencers and regular people from around the world who are on the site and the fact that the people at the top can in theory see everything they do and say, even in DMs, it’s quite a lot of power.

The other thing Weiss’ statement about the old regime and the new regime at Twitter brought to mind was a song. You’ve probably figured out which one from the headline and the screenshot but in case you haven’t, National Review’s John Miller once argued it was the best conservative rock song of all time.

The conservative movement is full of disillusioned revolutionaries; this could be their theme song, an oath that swears off naïve idealism once and for all. “There’s nothing in the streets / Looks any different to me / And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye. . . . Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss.” The instantly recognizable synthesizer intro, Pete Townshend’s ringing guitar, Keith Moon’s pounding drums, and Roger Daltrey’s wailing vocals make this one of the most explosive rock anthems ever recorded — the best number by a big band, and a classic for conservatives.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I hope we can do better than that because the principle of free speech really is important.

Update: Elon Musk responded directly to Bari Weiss.

What should the consequence of doxxing someone’s real-time, exact location be? Assume your child is at that location, as mine was.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022

Rather than rigorously pursuing truth, you are virtue-signaling to show that you are “good” in the eyes of media elite to keep one foot in both worlds

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022

Already a lot of reactions to this. Here’s Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive who came out of the Twitter Files looking pretty good.

Elon, as a father, I understand the safety of your family comes first. Could you remove the real-time tweet but not ban the account? If there is a continuous pattern of unsafe doxxing, then escalate. Let’s discuss these things as Americans first, thoughtfully and rationally.

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) December 16, 2022

Some on the left are seeing this as proof that free speech is dangerous and not a good idea.

The point is that if you have to betray your principles to protect your family, maybe your principles are terrible. And maybe you should apologize to all the people you condemned for not following your terrible principles when the lives of those they loved were in danger. pic.twitter.com/6YDUnEQmsF

— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) December 16, 2022

One of the questions being raised/asked is whether the info about Musk’s flights was really equivalent to doxing. Tim Pool had a few tweets about that which Musk also responded to.

Correct

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022

Note also the 2nd tweet below:

Sweeney actually bragged that he could write software to expose @elonmusk's private info pic.twitter.com/nlqNLBoCWf

— Tim Pool (@Timcast) December 16, 2022

The confusion comes from the assumption that the jet info is widely available and easily accessible public info. If you can just look up where someone’s jet is from a government source why ban it?

That doesn’t seem to be the case here, but that’s what people think.

— Austen Allred (@Austen) December 16, 2022

Others are still doubting the tweets in question (of the journalists who were banned) actually doxed anyone or at least wanting to see proof that’s the case. This is what I asked for last night. I’m persuadable that these folks crossed a line but “trust me, they totally doxed me” isn’t good enough. Why is it so hard to just show your work?

I agree. Obviously omitting sensitive information (eg. links, etc). Although I'll say…have we ever held previous Twitter admin to same standard for their moderation as we do the current?

— Katherine Brodsky (@mysteriouskat) December 16, 2022

No response from Bari Weiss yet. Hopefully they are talking about it by phone.

Update: A bit more context. Here’s Musk explaining the policy to a group of journalists last night.

If they’re naughty, they get suspended

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022