Elon Musk and other modern oligarchs can not only sway the public – they can exploit their data, too
A new Gilded Age of media barons?
All the newspapers fit to buy
Over the past decade, numerous American billionaires have purchased news media outlets such as theBoston Globe,Las Vegas Review-Journal,The Atlanticand theLos Angeles Times. Perhaps the most famous example isJeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Amazon, whospent US$250 millionof his roughly $170 billion net worth to purchaseThe Washington Postin 2013.
Mediascholarshave aired concern for decades that unfettered wealth and tepid government regulation haveenabled a handfulof corporations to dominate news media coverage in the U.S. Indeed, the companies that produce the majority of news media in the U.S. has dwindled from 50 in the1980sto roughlysixtoday.
Thisconsolidation of the media industry in the hands of wealthy individualsis, as media scholarRobert McChesneyhas argued, especiallyconcerning for a healthy democracy, which necessitates that the electorate has access to an abundance of diverse views and free-flowing information.
The public relies on journalists to relay stories that they can interpret to determine how they vote; if they will vote; and if they should organize and engage in civil disobedience. The negative consequences of this concentration of ownership are that it can enabled a handful of corporate news outlets to normalize baseless or false reporting that turns out to be misleading, such as the reporting onweapons of mass destructionprior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Just like the U.S. oligarchs of the 19th century and early 20th century, today’s billionaires recognize that by controlling the free flow of information they can control or shape the electorate’s democratic participation. For example, soon after casino mogul Sheldon Adelson purchased the Las Vegas Review-Journalreports surfacedthat stories about the billionaire were being censored or altered so he could manage the public’s image of his businesses in the gambling-centric city.
Similarly, some critics have suggested that after Bezos purchased The Washington Post, the newspaper’s coverage became noticeablysoft in its coverage of Amazon, andtoughon Bezos’ political opponents. The Washington Postdeniesbothof these claims.
The user as a product
With an estimated fortune of$268 billionas of April 2022, Musk is just the latest and wealthiest to purchase a media platform. In opting to buy into social media rather than a traditional news outlet, the Tesla CEO is getting control of an important news delivery system. A2021 Pew surveyfound that 23% of Americans use Twitter – and 7 in 10 Twitter users said they received news from the platform.
But the potential threats posed by an individual billionaire controlling Twitter are much more complicated and dangerous than that of earlier wealthy media proprietors, who primarily could only sway the news.
Even before Musk vied to buy Twitter, Silicon Valley was already controlled bybillionaireswho operated a handful of companies known as the FAANGs – Facebook (now Meta), Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google (now Alphabet). These companies’ profits are derived from a new economic order that Harvard Professor Shoshana Zuboff has dubbed “surveillance capitalism.” Under surveillance capitalism, the user is the product – that is to say, companies collect and sell information about users to those interested in predicting, or in some cases nudging,human behavior.
In this new economic order, tech companies constantly surveil users on and off their platforms for the purpose of collecting and analyzing data – which include audio, video, typed words, GPS orevenDNA– to open a window into a user’s thoughts and cognitive processes.
In order to keep the data pouring in, big tech companies rely on techniques from thegambling industrytokeep people addictedto their screen. Essentially, they keep users chasing the initial dopamine rush that comes from a “like” or “friend request” on Facebook, on a “retweet” or “new follower” on Twitter. Similar to the gambling industry,reportshave found that thesetechniquesare used with little regard for users’mental health.
In 2022, for example, aFacebook whistleblowerrevealed that the company was aware that its platform design was harming users, particularly young people, but refused to make any changes out of fear it would weaken profitability.
A free speech enthusiast?
In this context, Musk is not simply a modern version of a 19th century oligarch. His power goes beyond shaping public discourse with narrowly framed stories and the removal of select content. Yes, he may be able to do this. But in addition, he will have a vast amount of personal data under his discretion. For example, when usingTwitter content or products, including those integrated into other websites, Twitter collects data and stores what web pages the user accessed, as well as their IP address, browser type, operating system and cookie information.
Musk has said his purchase of Twitter is motivated by his support offree speech. But this runs counter to hisreputation for actively seeking revengeagainst those who criticize his businesses. Furthermore, under hisleadershipTesla has maintained contracts that prevented former employees from criticizing the company.
Moreover, as it has been argued by computer scientist and philosophy writerJaron Lanierand free-expression activist and authorJillian York, social media platforms such as Twitter are not conducive to “true” free speech, which is loosely defined asthe rightto express one’s opinions without interference.
Moreover, by making decisions about what content users do and do not see, social media companies, it could be argued, are interfering with speech. Indeed, social media platofrms’ algorithmscustomizenews feeds with content that they believe the user will find the most engaging, to the exclusion to other content.
The era of surveillance capitalism has created new opportunities for billionaires to influence the electorate. Like his predecessors in the first Gilded Age, Musk can determine which reporting users see and do not see on his platform. Unlike his predecessors, he can also track and surveil users – collecting lucrative data that can be used to predict or nudge their behavior.
This article byNolan Higdon, Lecturer of History and Media Studies,California State University, East Bay, is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
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