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eLon Musk is now undoubtedly the king of MAGA media.
Tech journalist Charlie Warzel once He called it “New Media Upside Down.”having fun Strange things. Sean Elling in Fox indicated As the “fictional industrial complex”. Simply put, Wikipedia He calls her “Alt-right media.”
To musk, A reborn MAGA crusader who has spent the past two years remaking one of the world’s major social networks in his image, this parallel world of algorithm-powered disinformation is simply “citizen journalism” — even if he is its own boss. a description It looks a lot like traditional journalism.
And after Donald Trump’s victory this week, the MAGA media world may just be the new mainstream media.
“The truth of this election was plain to see on X, while most legacy media relentlessly lied to the public,” the billionaire told his 203 million followers on Wednesday morning. “You’re the media now.”
Tuesday’s result was a testament to the enduring strength of this ecosystem. While “legacy” newspapers and television networks reported on Donald Trump’s criminal convictions and his alleged plots to overthrow the 2020 election, his cult of personality persisted across a whole other world of partisan news outlets, online influencers peddling merchandise, and outright cults dedicated to his glory.
However, since Trump himself was kicked out of mainstream social networks in January 2021, there has been no one at the top of this pyramid. That is, until this year.
“It was Trump, and now it’s Musk,” says Mike Rothschild, journalist and author of 2022. The storm is upon us About the QAnon conspiracy movement. “Musk has already taken on the role of main poster, and he loves it.”
Now, with Trump on his way to the White House, Musk’s purchase of Twitter two years ago for $44 billion — and, experts claim, his efforts to turn it into a pro-Trump propaganda machine — gives him enormous influence over the movement.
“What this does is it basically puts him in the elbow of the president-elect of the United States,” Rothschild says. “It puts him in power with a president who is beholden to him, at least for now.”
The Independent Elon Musk and X have been asked to comment.
“One-stop shop for conspiracy theories”
Long before the 2024 election, conservative journalists and activists have spent years building their own media ecosystem. Ronald Reagan’s liberalization of the television airwaves led to the creation of partisan networks such as Fox NewsNew generations have followed suit in the Internet era.
“We have already created parallel institutions,” says conservative media entrepreneur Mike Cernovich He said BuzzFeed News In 2017. “Trump supporters did not believe they were receiving fair or accurate treatment by the media…so we created The Answer.”
Meanwhile, as a technology correspondent for the UK Daily TelegraphI’ve watched conspiracy communities and right-wing extremists flourish on large social networks like Facebook and Instagram, with the help of companies’ algorithmic recommendation engines.
When the world was plunged into the Covid pandemic in 2020, these currents became a whirlpool. Diverse extremist communities coalesced under the banner of QAnon, eventually morphing into the Stop the Steal movement that stormed the US Capitol in 2021.
Trump served as a channel and amplifier for these energiesnoticed the false claims that had crept across the net from fringe spaces like 8chan and Telegram and then used a presidential megaphone to spread them to the entire movement.
In the early years of Trump’s rise, people sometimes talked about “fake news” or “misinformation” in isolation, as if it were the cause of what was happening. It is now clear that misinformation was merely a symptom and product of an overall cultural divide; That America has a problem with disinformation in the same way that a war zone has a problem with bullets
In the wake of the events of January 6, most attempts to create a new online hub for the Trump right have failed to gain traction – including Trump’s own effort, “Social Truth.” What no one expected then was that someone with enough money and motivation could simply take over an existing social network.
But then Musk bought Twitter in early 2022. And ever since Burn “Twitter 1.0”Musk dramatically scaled down
According to reportsThe social platform has also systematically failed to enforce its own rules against the far right, repeatedly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to buy ads, verify that they are “official organizations,” or make money through its revenue-sharing program.
And while X’s own revenues appear to have collapsedThe company has at least succeeded in fulfilling the dream of many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs: cutting out middlemen and bringing together what was once a multi-platform supply chain.
“It’s really a one-stop shop for conspiracy theories now,” says Rothschild (who, by the way, is no relation to the famous Rothschild banking family that always fascinates conspiracy theorists).
“It used to be that you would find something on 4chan, post it on Reddit. Then it would go to a small Twitter account, then to the bigger accounts, then it would get to Trump, and Trump would get it on Fox News. Now there’s no need for any of that.” “
“The old media pushed a completely false reality.”
Ultimately, it may be Musk’s behavior that had the biggest impact. Since Trump’s social media statements are still relatively marginal compared to what they were during his first term, they are Musk’s Apparently compulsive tweeting That filled the void.
In fact, tweaking X’s algorithms to promote his own posts is one of the main ways Musk has been accused of skewing the service toward Trump. At this point, it seems impossible to separate his personal views, or his own opinions Tendency to blatant deceptions and Incitement to violence at the borderfrom X’s editorial policy.
“Today, Musk has turned X into a political operation aimed at electing Trump at all costs. That means not just hosting election disinformation, but actively promoting it.” Technology journalist Casey Newton wrote on Monday.
We do not yet know how important this is in determining the outcome of the elections. But given how many mainstream media, polls, and political establishments have completely misjudged what’s going to happen, many progressives are treating this as a fifth warning.
“The Biden/Harris camp built the best phone banking and door-knocking operation in history, and failed to attract 15 million voters for Biden 2020,” Ari Drennen of the left-wing media watchdog Media Matters for America wrote.
“Republicans have built an echo chamber and ignored legacy media. Democrats need to invest in content creators and pray it’s not too late.”
In reality, Writing to The Independent Thursdayformer Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger claimed that Musk’s alleged background discussions with Vladimir Putin and the influence of alternative media may make him a greater threat to the US than the president-elect himself.
Naturally, Musk sees the moment differently. “Anyone… who finds this finding shocking should reconsider where they get their information.” He said Wednesday night. “This trend has been evident on X for months, but almost all of the legacy mainstream media has pushed a completely false reality. They lied to you.”
It’s anyone’s guess how long this situation will last, given the ever-changing nature of Trump’s alliance and the fickle winds of online popularity. “I think at some point, maybe very soon, one person’s ego will collide with another person’s ego, and the whole thing will fall apart,” Rothschild says.
Right now, there is one clear ruler of the MAGA media mirror universe. And perhaps for the first time since 2016, it’s not Donald Trump.
