Topic: Media Research Center
After giving a pass to his anti-Semitism and cheering his petulant and vulgar dissing of advertisers, it's clear that the Media Research Center will never hold Elon Musk accountable for any of his numerous missteps in running Twitter (well, X). Clay Waters spent a Dec. 3 post lashing out at a news report that did outline those missteps:
The liberal media knives are out for entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has been steering the liberal-dominated blue-check bastion social media platform formerly known as Twitter toward free speech and increased diversity of opinion since taking it over a year ago. Thursday’s edition of the PBS NewsHour devoted almost six minutes to attacking the space and technology impresario.
The conversation between National Public Radio’s tech reporter Bobby Allyn and PBS host Geoff Bennett was keyed to a threatened “advertising freeze” from virtual-signaling corporate entities like Disney and Apple, after controversy over a Musk reply to a tweet on X that was perceived as anti-Semitic (and which he later apologized for), and Musk’s vulgarity-laden response to his corporate critics at a New York Times-hosted business conference.
“Increasingly unhinged” was the descriptor bestowed on Musk by Allyn, who pitched a tantrum against Musk on Twitter earlier this year. His employer NPR left the platform in a huff over Musk labeling it “US state-affiliated media.”
The two tax-funded journalists engaged in performative offense-taking against Musk’s F-bombs, practically panting that the outburst would mark the beginning of Musk’s long-awaited downfall (and presumably flock to Mastodon or Threads, two would-be Twitter replacements everyone’s already forgotten about).
In fact, that tweet wasn't just "perceived as anti-Semitic" -- it actually was anti-Semitic -- and Musk didn't merely "reply" to the tweet, he endorsed his message by calling it "the actual truth." And it wasn't until more than two weeks later, during the same event at which he lashed out at his advertisers, that he bothered to offer some sort of apology; that endorsement tweet remains live as of this writing, suggesting that his so-called apology wasn't terribly sincere. Waters seems to have forgotten that Musk's labeling of NPR's feed was completely arbitrary and violated Twitter's own labeling standards, falsely likening it to propagandistic state-controlled media organizations in other countries, and the move backfired so badly that Musk dropped all labeling of "state-affiliated media" feeds on Twitter.
Waters didn't actually rebut anything Bennett and Allyn said about Musk, instead whining that "Bennett relegated Musk’s ambitious technological achievements, which the Biden Administration is depending on, as quasi-blackmail material stored up by Musk" and that "Allyn also portrayed Musk as a mad scientist with his hooks into the power structure."
The MRC kept up its sycophancy with a Dec. 4 tweet thanking Musk for the "Twitter files," which are nothing but cherry-picked documents selectively given to journalists hand-picked by Musk to sydcophantically write about them.
A Dec. 8 post by Luis Cornelio served up more Musk sycophancy:
Facebook and Instagram are under legal scrutiny stemming from a lawsuit filed by New Mexico, accusing the companies of inexplicably facilitating “prime locations” of child sex abuse content—and X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk is blasting the inexplicable silence from advertising companies that have boycotted ads on X over accusations of anti-Semitism.
The disturbing allegations, brought forth by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, accused the Mark Zuckerberg-owned social media platforms of turning a blind eye to the spread of sexual content involving sexual “coercion” of children, through “prostitution” and/or the “sale of [Child Sexual Abuse Material].” Specifically, the attorney general’s office alleged that Facebook and Instagram “served” streams of “sexually explicit images” to children and reportedly “enabled” adults to “find, message, and groom minors, soliciting them to sell pictures or participate in pornographic videos.”
Musk pressed Disney CEO Bob Iger on whether Disney would pull ads from the Meta-owned platforms. Notably, Iger in recent weeks pulled ads from X over dubious accusations that Musk’s platform placed ads near or next to racist and anti-semitic content. "Why no advertiser boycott, Bob Iger [sic]? You are endorsing this material!" Musk wrote in a fired-up X post. In a follow-up post, Musk added, “[W]hy do their Chief Marketing Officers endorse child trafficking!? Let’s ask them.”
Musk’s criticism came in response to Disney’s decision to pull ads from X after the release of a dubious report accusing the platform of placing ads near or next to alleged anti-Semitic or racist posts. Musk then took legal action.
Seemingly without questioning the evidence, notable companies such as Apple and Disney quickly pulled ads. However, neither company has yet decided to take similar action following the new accusations from the New Mexico attorney general.
Actually, the evidence that Musk did this is pretty clear. But Cornelio is falling into the MRC pattern of refusing to acknowledge that this evidence was gathered by Media Matters, the MRC's more liberal watchdog rival. Cornelio merely stated that Musk "took legal action" but not against who, and he didn't explain why anyone should be "questioning the evidence" when it's so well documented.
Christian Toto similarly defended Musk in his Dec. 9 column:
Plus, Disney recently yanked advertising from X, Elon Musk’s free speech friendlier version of Twitter.
That’s an overtly political move.
Musk is a left-leaning soul, but he’s been drifting to the Right given the Left’s quest to silence free speech. Iger’s Disney followed a false narrative that Musk is an anti-semite and pulled ads from the platform in response.
Meanwhile, TikTok promotes Osama bin Laden’s rhetoric and other social media giants teem with hateful content.
Why single out X?
We know why. Iger and co. haven’t gotten politics out of their system yet. Talk is talk until we see real action behind it. The ball’s in your court, Mr. Iger.
It's almost cute how Toto pretends Musk is "left-leaning" despite all the evidence to the contrary. He also failed to offer any evidence that Musk's anti-Semitic leaning is a "false narrative."