“Democracy Dies in Darkness,” says the mast of The Washington Post.
And the Posties say it with a straight face, despite the publication’s ownership by one of the czars of knowledge, commerce and all other things extant and of importance, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.
The Post pages recently dripped with irony as an op-ed contributor called for regulation “to prevent rich people from controlling our channels of communication.”
That’s what the Post said, or at least that’s what Ellen K. Pao wrote in Friday’s edition of a newspaper owned by one of the wealthiest human beings on the planet.
Ah, you can’t make this stuff up.
Pao, a tech investor, was addressing the big purchase of Twitter stock by Tesla’s Elon Musk and Musk’s critical view of Twitter’s practices of censorship — censorship that has included booting a then-sitting president of the United States, Donald Trump, off the platform in January 2021.
Pao is not amused.
Elon Musk’s vision of “free speech” will be bad for Twitter, @ekp writes in @PostEverything https://t.co/KIjpZ6gu3P
— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) April 8, 2022
“For those of us who care about equity and accountability, Musk’s appointment to such a prominent role at a platform that serves hundreds of millions of users daily is highly disconcerting — a slap in the face, even,” she wrote.
Is it good that Elon Musk is critical of restrictions on free speech?
Yes: 0% (0 Votes)
No: 0% (0 Votes)
Pao has her equity bona fides. She and six other women founded Project Include, aimed at diversity and inclusion in the high-tech industry.
And she has the scars from her battles in Silicon Valley. In 2012 she filed a discrimination suit against her employer Kleiner Perkins after its top executives, including a man who mentored her, deemed her unqualified for promotion.
She sued, claiming retaliation from a junior partner with whom she was romantically involved.
And she’s alarmed that Musk believes Twitter should be less restrictive on “speech that many see as hateful, abusive or dangerous.”
She gave examples — Musk shows “very little empathy” in his tweets, is…
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