Key facts:
Twitter is not the real world, it is a platform owned by a company.
It is curious that bitcoiners pin their hopes for freedom on a centralized network.
The purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk has generated all kinds of reactions. Many people have raised concerns about Musk’s takeover of a platform they see as central to the movement of information today, while others believe in the entrepreneur’s promise to users of the social network: to turn it into a true platform for “freedom of expression”.
Among those people, many are bitcoiners, whose principles are based on the eradication of trusted third parties, intermediaries and centralization: everything that Twitter is not and will not be. It doesn’t matter what Musk promises.
It is not that he in particular cannot or does not want to do it (his motivations can only be fully known by himself), but that a platform like that does not necessarily respond to the premise of freedom.
Despite the number of voices that have a presence on the social network and the enormous flow of information that is published there, it is still a platform owned by a company that, due to its centralized nature, can censor at will. They have the right to do it (this is how companies and services work) and they have done it since the world began.
Let’s look at Twitter for a moment as if it were my home. In this space I can be open to receive a wide variety of people with their own respective voices. I can even give them the opportunity to speak and express themselves at will. But it will still be my home, under my own subjective rules..
There is always the possibility that a person will say or do something offensive, aggressive or simply not in accordance with my principles; and that could change my mind about allowing her presence in my space. In short, something that makes me ask you to leave my house. Let’s take that as my “use policies” of the space of “expression” that is my house, in this imaginary exercise. Everything gets more complicated if we add how complex freedom of expression is. Especially when the right of others not to be violated is violated in their name.
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What guarantees us, then, that Musk cannot change his mind at some point about the limits of the “freedom of expression” that he claims to want to guarantee on Twitter? Where would be the borders of that freedom and who will be in charge of deciding what is correct? According to Musk himself, he would simply adhere to the laws in his conception of what “freedom of expression” is. But those are the US rules. Do we all follow the same rules? After all, it will still be your “home”.
Don’t trust, check
There are those who simply assume that what Elon says he wants is what he is actually going to do. It seems, or at least it gives me that impression, that that way of blindly trusting goes in total opposition to one of the most basic bitcoiners principles: don’t trust, verify.
Those same bitcoiners rely on the success of Musk’s ventures and his light-hearted way of communicating on social media and other media to ensure he succeeds at what he promises. This, it is worth reiterating, taking for certain their manifest intentions.
But for me the problem is not whether he will comply or not. Yes, Twitter contains the voices of millions of people. It is also true that the bitcoiner community in particular is very strong and deeply rooted in this network. We could even say that it is the most active and diverse space for debate for bitcoiners today. Now, let’s take a moment to acknowledge something: Despite all this, Twitter is not the center of the world and life continues outside its borders.
Despite this importance that cannot be denied, shouldn’t we, as bitcoiners, be clear that it is just one more tool? Shouldn’t we be clear that it is essentially centralized and that, with that principle, can not be considered as a space that guarantees absolute freedom but rather limited?
Is Bitcoin only a form of money, a monetary network? Or is it also a philosophical and political approach to life? As I see it, Bitcoin is a way of understanding the world outside of economics as well. And Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or any other network does not and cannot work as a bitcoiner would expect. Whether they are managed by Musk or not.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to its author and do not necessarily reflect those of CriptoNoticias.