Today Twitter is Run by Secret Algorithms and Partisans and Owned by Saudi Princes and Hedge Fund Billionaires.

Elon Musk’s proposal to take Twitter private has outraged liberals across America. His plan to return the company to its founding principle of free speech coupled with absolute transparency has been met with Orwellian claims that ‘Freedom is Tyranny’. What confuses me is that no one seemed to have any issues with the fact that one of Twitter’s largest investors is Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia. You may recall that just last month the Kingdom executed 81 people for various crimes including homosexuality, political dissent, and membership in the Shia Muslim minority - to be fair three of the eighty-one people executed were murders. You might have seen director Bryan Fogel's documentary of how the Saudi Royal Family’s kidnapped and murdered Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi.

Yesterday Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal exerted his power over the company by tweeting that his family, as one of Twitter’s largest and longest owners, would block Elon Musk’s plan to return the company to its founding principle of free speech.

It is important not to forget, that according to the Department of Justice, Prince Talal caused Twitter to hire two Saudis who provided private data for over 6,000 Twitter users critical of the Royal Family. The data provided by the two Twitter employees included geodata and private messages between the Washington Post’s Jamal Khashoggi and a prominent dissident he was covering named Omar Abdulaziz1 enabling the Saudis to assassinate Khashoggi.2 The two Saudis were charged by the DOJ with spying for Saudi Arabia. American liberals weren’t concerned…

But it isn’t just the Saudi Royal Family that exerts its control and influence over the company, Blackrock is another very large owner of the company. They’re under fire for buying large swaths of single-family homes throughout the United States stoking fears that future Americans will be forced to become renters instead of owners. They’re doubling down on their investments with the Chinese Communist Party drawing criticism from everyone from human rights groups to hedge fund managers like Kyle Bass. American liberals don’t seemed concerned…

Today Twitter operates in secret and no one outside the company knows exactly how the Twitter Algorithm works - it is a proverbial black box. Twitter admits that its algorithms impact hundreds of millions of Tweets each day. Last year the company shared plans to begin promoting and suppressing Tweets based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and political ideology. They’ve focused their efforts on seven different countries to promote equity and shape political ideology.3

Twitter has routinely modified its algorithm just in time for U.S. elections. For example, during the 2018 midterm elections Twitter implemented filters they claimed were designed to hide “low quality” content. It turns out, as confirmed by Alex Thompson from VICE, the content being hidden was from Republican congressional candidates and their supporters.4 The company eventually claimed that Republicans and their supporters were ‘shadowbanned’ as a result of a software bug that they promised to fix. Twitter apologized to lawmakers with the company’s CEO tweeting, “It suffices to say we have a lot more work to do to earn people’s trust on how we work.”

During congressional hearings Rep Jim Jordan asked Twitter’s CEO how is it possible for a ‘software bug’ to target one political party and not the other before a major election - he is still waiting on an answer. It might, and I’m only guessing here, have something to do with the fact that according to the Federal Elections Commission, 99% of political contributions made by Twitter employees go to Democrats.5 Of course, that cuts right to the heart of the matter.

One day before early voting began in the 2020 presidential election the nation’s oldest newspaper (founded by Alexander Hamilton) published a story detailing how Joe Biden’s son had made millions selling his father’s influence in China, Russia, and Ukraine. The New York Post had obtained emails, contracts, bank statements, and phone records from a laptop in FBI custody that exposed the Bidens’ corruption.6 Twitter decided to suspend the New York Post’s account and block users from sharing the story on the platform. The company only lifted the New York Post’s suspension and allowed sharing of the story AFTER early voting had ended in most states. Once again Twitter’s CEO apologized for suspending the New York Post and blocking users from sharing the bombshell report for weeks leading up to the election.7

At the end of the day, Twitter allows state actors like Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Chinese Communist Party, and Russian President Putin to operate massive propaganda machines8 on their platform while actively working to censor and remove members of the largest political party in America - including the former President of the United States.

Elon Musk’s idea to reform Twitter is very simple: First, open-source the source code for Twitter on GitHub9 allowing anyone in the world to see exactly how the algorithm works. Anyone could submit changes to the repository and the company could decide whether or not to accept them. Most importantly everyone would know exactly how the system worked - this would eliminate the sort of ‘software bugs’ that ‘shadowbanned’ Republicans during the 2018 midterms. Any change would be public. Second, before suspending a user make it very clear what rule they are accused of breaking, give them an opportunity to cure, use timeouts and pauses, and above all else enforce the rules equally regardless of a user’s political party or ideology. Listen for yourself:

Today Twitter operates in a secret black box controlled by Saudi Princes and hedgefund managers - Elon Musk’s proposal is to operate in the open for all to see. I don’t know if I trust Elon Musk any more than I trust Prince Talal or Larry Fink - but under Elon’s plan, we don’t have to trust him…