From Brandon Smith of the Bob Livingston Personal Liberty Alerts
Twitter is a bit of an enigma. The social media company has gone from a relatively innocuous space for people to mostly market online businesses and for politicians and celebrities to engage with their followers or detractors, to a vicious battleground overrun with leftist zealots hellbent on using the platform as a weapon to silence dissent and destroy the lives of people that disagree with them. If I was to describe what Twitter really stands for today, I would say it is an attempt to build a global hive mind; a place where everyone is coerced into conformity with establishment ideals through peer pressure and mob aggression.
In other words, Twitter is the antithesis of a free-speech society. A beta test for the future of authoritarianism where you think you are allowed to speak your mind but only the "correct" opinions are allowed to pass.
How this happened is hard to say. Some theorize that leftist cultists scrambled like rats from the sinking ship of Tumblr and found their way over to Twitter to take up residency. I would argue that maybe Twitter was always intended to become what it now is. Just take a look at the monster's gallery of its largest shareholders.
There's Vanguard and Blackrock, which together represent a globalist vampire squid of epic proportions. Their tentacles are wrapped around almost every aspect of the economy including media, big pharma (including Pfizer), weapons manufacturers, huge swaths of the U.S. housing market, etc. If these two mega conglomerates were to somehow be wiped off the face of the Earth tomorrow, the world would be a much better place. For now, they own almost everything.
Then there is Morgan Stanley, another "too big to fail" international banking firm that for some reason has a major stake in the realm of "tweets." Whenever globalist companies like these pursue major investments in a communications platform there is generally something nefarious afoot. And it should be noted that almost all the media companies they own push an agenda that leans hard left and is authoritarian in nature. We witnessed this undeniable dynamic in the past two years as media companies attacked anyone that stood against the illegal covid mandates.
Why do major globalist institutions have so much interest in Twitter? It's not because Twitter is a moneymaker. In 2020 the company suffered a net income loss of over $1.14 billion. In 2021 there was an income loss of $221 million. Twitter still claims it earns a profit, but this is primarily derived from stock buybacks and state and federal government subsidies, meaning, without overnight loans from the Federal Reserve and tax breaks from government Twitter simply would not exist.
Twitter is carrying a debt load of around $6.75 billion in total liabilities according to The Wall Street Journal, with a dismal stock performance until the pandemic which led to trillions in stimulus dollars flooding into equities markets. Now that the covid checks have dried up, the company's stock has spiraled down yet again. The only thing propping it up today is the sudden prospect of an Elon Musk buyout.
Twitter was bleeding users and was dealing with a declining membership base leading up to 2019 when the company decided it would fix the problem by not reporting traditional user numbers anymore. They shifted to a new metric that they claimed was designed to discount the removal of "spam and bot accounts." One has to wonder how much of Twitter's actual user base is made of real people rather than fake accounts? Even with the new metrics, evidence suggests they have continued to lose users and revenues since 2019, largely due to the hostile political witch hunt environment that Twitter has developed in the past few years.
The U.S. government has also been heavily invested in Twitter over the years, throwing millions into various projects the company has undertaken including many overseas. This makes sense because Twitter regularly shares user data with government agencies, often while claiming they don't. Surveillance requests are kept secret and any release of information on such requests are blocked by U.S. courts.
Overall, Twitter is a cesspool of political and corporate corruption. A sock puppet of massive globalist shareholders and a data clearinghouse for conglomerates and governments alike. This is why I have never had an account with them, and likely never will.
It boggles my mind how all of these facts can be right out in the open, yet the one thing that sends leftists on Twitter into a rage is the notion that Elon Musk might buy up enough stock in the company to determine its future course. Here are some key facts that I think the Twitter elites need to consider:
1) Twitter has been on a downward plunge in terms of user base and revenues for years now. The fact that the company's board has decided to assert a leftist political agenda and enforce unbalanced censorship rules is killing the company even further. In a few years, Twitter will not exist. Or, if it does, it will be a shell of its former self much like Myspace or Tumblr. The platform you people think you control is dying. Without fair public discourse and equally enforced guidelines Twitter serves no purpose other than to act as an echo chamber for leftist fanatics, and who wants to be a party to that?
2) The Twitter cult and their "blue checkmark" gatekeepers are losing their minds over the prospect of a "billionaire" taking over Twitter when in reality the platform has been controlled by the world’s richest and most invasive shareholders for a long time. If you think Vanguard or BlackRock are better stewards than Elon Musk then I suggest you do a little more research on the history of these corporations.
3) Elon Musk's interest in Twitter has stirred up excitement in a platform that was otherwise destined for the dumpster. I might even suggest that Musk's activities are prolonging Twitter's life span by drawing in investments that never would have been there otherwise. The blue checkmarks should be thanking him instead of attacking him.
4) What is the primary complaint that Twitter elitists have when it comes to Musk? That he might bring in more fair and balanced rules which would prevent political censorship. In other words, they are angry because he might allow true free speech within the boundaries of legality for conservatives as well as leftists. This is unacceptable to them. In their minds, free speech is only reserved for those with "correct thinking," and they believe they get to dictate what "correct thinking" is. It takes a special kind of evil to believe that their side is the only side of an issue that deserves to be heard.
In terms of Elon Musk, I'm reserving judgment for now. Tesla and SpaceX receive billions in government subsidies and tax incentives, far more than Twitter does. I question the validity of any company that relies on government handouts in order to survive.
Musk also is an attendee of the World Government Summit in Dubai, where globalists from various nations meet to talk about the agenda for global centralization. Musk's discussion was specifically on how he thinks the future of humanity is to "merge with machines," much like having your cellphone attached to your brain. This sounds like a dystopian nightmare to me; governments already track and monitor cellphone activity, do you really want them to do the same with your brain?
Setting all that aside, Musk's surprising pursuit of Twitter is interesting no matter which way it goes. He could take control and shut the whole thing down, which is what I would suggest given the platform is a cancer on society and rife with government and corporate surveillance. Scattering the blue check cult to the four winds would be one of the best gifts Musk could give the world right now. They can always complain about everything on other platforms, just not with so much concentrated corporate power at their disposal.
Musk could sell his nearly 10 percent share in the company and trigger a massive plunge in the stock price. This might even precipitate a faster end to the platform. Then again, he may continue to buy up shares and find a way around Twitter's "poison pill" initiative. In fact, in the back of my conspiracy brain, I wonder if Musk is actually saving Twitter rather than changing it or destroying it?
The company was entering the doldrums; its life expectancy was waning quickly. The influence of the Twitter mob has been decreasing and their ability to harm others is disappearing. Big tech companies are like sharks. They must keep moving forward in order to grow and survive. Twitter's momentum has been dead for some time. Maybe it is better to let them rot in their own filth rather than try to resurrect and revitalize a corpse?
Regardless of Musk's true intentions, something needs to change dramatically when it comes to Big Tech and social media in the west. These companies live on our tax dollars and government incentives and yet they get to enjoy the protections of limited liability and the auspices of "private businesses." They are publicly funded in many respects, but they claim the right to censor whoever they wish for any reason they wish. Any business that tries to directly compete with them is crushed, either by collusion between multiple corporations or collusion with governments. This is the epitome of monopoly and the complete opposite of free markets.
If Musk can throw a monkey wrench into the existing system then I hope he's successful; the majority of the public is on his side if that's the case. There is also the possibility that he is helping Twitter to survive. Even support from Vanguard, Blackrock and the seventh circle of hell has not been able to keep Twitter from going down the tubes, but the branding and personality power of Musk could keep the company alive.
My point is, if the leftists want to keep their favorite platform they will need Musk to do it. And beyond that, conservatives and moderates should also not put too much faith in any billionaire to accomplish a sea-change in social media. We are already winning by simply not playing the game. If Musk brings down or upends Twitter, great. If not, it's no loss. Just let them continue to crumble.
To truth and knowledge,
Brandon Smith
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