I wrote earlier about the dustup between Sen. Ed Markey (D-WA) and Elon Musk but there are a few more points that I wanted to hit on.
Markey blamed Musk for a Washington Post reporter impersonating Markey with a fake account with a blue check mark.
Now, I wrote about some of the confusion created by the Twitter Blue subscription, by people getting blue checks by paying for the service. Yes, that created some questions and Musk suspended the service to work out the kinks and reports are that it will likely be coming back next week.
While Markey wanted to blame the impersonation on Musk, it was done by the reporter with the permission of Markey, as the reporter acknowledged, noting he first impersonated a comedian’s account and “Then I did my test again with the permission of a U.S. senator, Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.).”
Then Markey used it to blow a gasket and demand answers in a formal letter to Musk, even though he, Markey, had greenlit the effort.
But that wasn’t all. Markey didn’t just make those demands in that letter to Musk. Markey also warned Musk very specifically that if he didn’t “fix” his companies, Congress would fix them for him.
“One of your companies is under an FTC consent decree,” Markey ranted. “Auto safety watchdog NHTSA is investigating another for killing people. And you’re spending your time picking fights online. Fix your companies. Or Congress will.”
Did a sitting senator just threaten someone for trolling him, to go after him for speech or political position? It sure sounds like that. Who is the fascist again? Hint: It’s not the Republicans, it never was. Politicians serve us, they do not rule over us and get to threaten us for questioning them. This is neither normal nor proper.
One Twitter user also noted that Markey’s tweet was misleading.
Many on Twitter said Markey was abusing his power.
That had some wondering and speculating about the coordination between the reporter and Markey.
I don’t know about any further involvement of others, but it does seem like they were creating an excuse to go after Musk and Twitter.
Then shouldn’t both Markey and the reporter be suspended for faking accounts? Impersonators get suspended unless they have parody marked in their accounts.
But isn’t it odd that suddenly there’s all this attention on Musk who wants a platform of free speech and open to all, not controlled by the Democratic narrative? Funny how that works.