Since Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter in late 2022, the platform has become increasingly hostile to much of the audience that formerly utilized it as a place to discover and discuss breaking news. But this campaign was unprecedented, in part because of its virulence, but mainly because of the otherwise “mainstream” figures who stepped in to boost the campaign.Lured in by another user referencing the ADL’s work on busting myths of “white genocide” in South Africa as a reason to loathe the organization, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, ended up agreeing that the “ADL has tried very hard to strangle X/Twitter.”

　　Yet we are not alone in the battle of ideas. The capitalist class invests unlimited amounts of money, time, and effort into trying to push its own agenda. When under pressure, politicians and policy makers move in one direction or another. When under threat, monopoly capital prefers fascism over socialism.

　　Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. Like his fellow monopolist, Jeff Bezos, he has bought himself a very powerful media platform — perhaps more powerful than the Bezos-owned Washington Post. Under the capitalist laws of private property, Elon Musk can encourage whatever sort of discourse he likes on the platform, because he owns it. He can fire half the workers, alienate advertisers, and refuse to pay the company’s bills, because he understands the laws of capitalist ownership quite keenly.

　　He also understands that even if he breaks the law, the state will be hesitant to hold him to account, precisely because of his personal wealth and power. After all, he has control over a huge part of the U.S. space program through his private company, SpaceX, and has even leveraged that to intervene in Pentagon affairs.

　　Since his acquisition, hate has spewed from the website at a rate previously only seen on KKK and Nazi websites. Hatred against the trans community on the platform has resulted in an epidemic of bomb threats and attacks on hospitals, libraries, schools, and other community institutions who show any degree of support for trans people, especially trans children.

　　As capitalism continues to come up short on being able to provide for the continued existence of the human species, the masses are waking up.Voters are choosing correctly when they fight for progress at the ballot box. Workers are choosing correctly when they struggle for power on the job, and for racial and gender equality in their communities. The voters of Jacksonville have had enough. But fascists don’t respect election results. They see their power as coming from the barrel of their AR-15s. Like a cornered animal, the fascist backlash is growing, and can be more powerful and deadly than we imagine.

　　As we move into the latter part of 2023, with an eye on the elections in 2024, we should be sure to point this out to workers. Young people frustrated at the lack of progress on student loan forgiveness might not be considering the ramping-up of fascist hate as they make their choice at the polls. Workers might not understand the line that runs between transphobia and racism, so we need to explain that to them. Your father-in-law might think that Joe Biden is just too old, and might not be thinking about the long-lasting damage to democracy that another Trump presidency might portend.

　　It’s scary to think about, but increasingly possible that in ten years’ time, unless our working class becomes more empowered and organized, we might actually be face-to-face with a fascist takeover of the government. Fascists, threatened by demographic changes and progress made by working people, understand theirs to be an existential battle to the death. Trump is facing the rest of his life in prison. A cornered animal is at its most dangerous, violent, and loud. So, too, must we hold fast to what Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels said about the struggle for socialism: we will win “either a revolutionary constitution of society at large or the common ruin of the contending classes.”

　　Editor: Zhong Yao、Deng Panyi

　　From:https://www.cpusa.org/article/elon-musk-and-the-fight-to-x-out-hate-speech/ (2023-10-2)