Regular MSNBC guest Elie Mystal claimed that new platform owner Elon Musk would leak black users’ direct messages from Twitter.
Mystal, who also serves as The Nation’s justice correspondent, argued that the billionaire entrepreneur would not protect the privacy of direct messages on Twitter — unless the users happened to be white.
“To me, the principle danger in the new Twitter overlord is that an impulsive, bad faith actor with a history of racial animus now owns messages to and from Black people that were intended to be private or quasi private,” Mystal began, going on to note that he often used Twitter messages to reach out to sources — something that people might not feel safe doing if they believed the privacy of those messages could ever be compromised.
I know a lot of people, and journos especially, are like me and use DMs for sourcing, for background conversations, and for market testing opinions before taking them *live.*
In the future, Elon will own all that. Do you trust him to protect your privacy?— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) April 26, 2022
“In the future, Elon will own all that. Do you trust him to protect your privacy?” Mystal asked.
Mystal went on to suggest that only white people could believe with any degree of confidence that Musk, at the helm of Twitter, would protect their privacy.
“If you’re white, maybe you can. Maybe you implicitly can. Maybe you are so secure in your whiteness and your ‘but the market would punish him’ expectations that you just *assume* that there’s no way ol’ Elon would sell you out when Roger Stone comes calling. I’d say you’re wrong,” he said.
“But even if your whiteness protects you, it won’t protect me. Or my sources. I have to assume that anything I DM or is DM’d to me could now be ‘leaked’ or ‘hacked’ or ‘whoopsie’d’ to Stone or Breitbart or Newsmax or Mediaite or any white wing actor or organization looking for it.”
But even if your whiteness protects you, it won't protect me. Or my sources. I have to assume that anything I DM or is DM'd to me could now be "leaked" or "hacked" or "whoopsie'd" to Stone or Breitbart or Newsmax or Mediaite or any white wing actor or organization looking for it.
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) April 26, 2022
Mystal then accused Musk of being a “megalomaniacal racist” and argued that whatever the worst possible thing he could do was, he would do it.
“Put yourself in the mind of a megalomaniacal racist, imagine the worst thing he could do, THEN IMAGINE HE’D DO IT… because the Black experience in America is simply that: the worst thing white folks can think of to do, they do, to at least some of us,” Mystal added.
“So I can, more or less, keep on the *public* side of Twitter,” Mystal concluded. “Or at least my objections to the public side are simply about creating content for Elon’s Web. But the private side. What I actually *use* Twitter for? Can’t do that anymore. Elon is too untrustworthy.”
“The View” host Sunny Hostin also suggested that Twitter would be worse following Musk’s takeover. Claiming that it was really only about making sure that “straight white men” had free speech across the platform, Hostin argued that they would probably use that freedom to be more abusive toward women.
"Unleash the trolls": Sunny Hostin says Twitter is mostly "straight white men" who will probably just use freedom of speech to abuse women. pic.twitter.com/pL7UFm2LVH
— Virginia Kruta (@VAKruta) April 26, 2022
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Source: Dailywire
