Censorship ‘Unhealthy for Public Discourse,’ Big Tech Manipulating Elections ‘For Some Time’: Musk

Billionaire Elon Musk expressed his concern about threats to freedom of speech online and warned that big tech firms like Facebook and Google have been manipulating elections globally for some time.

One of the main factors that motivated Musk to buy Twitter was that he was becoming “increasingly concerned” about the lack of freedom of speech and “a lot of censorship,” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said in a June 17 interview with podcast host and rapper Zuby. “I thought that’s really unhelpful and unhealthy for public discourse. So, how are people in a democracy supposed to make the right decision if they don’t have the right information, if they’re being misled, or [if] important information has been withheld, which obviously was the case in the Infamous Hunter Biden laptop situation.”

Back in December, Musk and independent journalist Matt Taibbi revealed that former execs at Twitter suppressed the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story in the weeks leading to the 2020 presidential election.

To suppress the New York Post report, executives marked the story as “unsafe,” thereby limiting its spread and even blocking it from being shared through Twitter’s direct messaging function. Such severe restrictions are usually reserved for content like child pornography, Taibbi noted.

Talking about the suppression in his interview with Zuby, Musk said that “Everyone knows about that. But there are thousands of other smaller situations like that.”

The Twitter owner pointed out that tech companies like Facebook, Google, and YouTube have “put their thumb on the scale of elections worldwide.”

“And they have done for some time. And a lot of times, it’s so subtle you don’t even really notice it. Frankly, Google might be the most pernicious in that it’s very easy for them to slightly de-rank a search, so it’s on page four or five if you’re looking for something. And nobody ever goes there.”

Musk noted that most of the influential social media companies are in the Bay Area, and the region has a “very sort of far left position, especially in San Francisco.”

AI Threat, Neuralink Project

On the question regarding what he believes is the “greatest threat to humanity,” Musk pointed to digital superintelligence or artificial general intelligence. In fact, Musk thinks AI will more likely “be good than bad.” However, “it’s just that the probability of a bad outcome is not zero.”

“And I think, probably, the more we worry about a bad outcome, the less likely it is to occur. So, I think we should just try to steer the AI in a good direction.”

Regarding his controversial Neuralink project, Musk said that “it’s not going to like sort of pounce on us overnight. You’ll see it coming. It’s going to be very slow.” Neuralink is an implant that aims to allow a person to control a computer with their thoughts.

“I really think that artificial general intelligence or digital super intelligence is likely to arrive before we have really advanced Neuralinks. At least, that’s where the trend is right now,” he said. “Ultimately, the idea would be to achieve symbiosis between our biological mind and our kind of digital mind.”

According to Musk, the initial Neuralink devices will focus on restoring functionality to people who have lost the connection between their body and brain, like a quadriplegic. The second application will seek to restore eyesight to people who have gone blind.

Despite Musk’s optimism, experts are worried about data security on Neuralink. Currently, Neuralink communicates with a computer through Bluetooth, which can be hacked using a variety of easily available tools, according to Gary Miliefsky, a cybersecurity expert, head of Cyber Defense Media Group, and a founding member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

If implants are designed to access memory processing centers of the brain, it could open a floodgate of privacy issues, ranging from theft of passwords to corporate and national secret exfiltration, he warned.

“There is not a single computer on the internet that I would say is safe and secure from a loss of privacy or having enough security that you could say, ‘Jimmy, who’s got the implant, all of his private thoughts are still secure.’ And it’s not going to happen.”

Having Children, Being a Parent

In the interview with Zuby, Musk also touched upon having children. “You will absolutely be happier if you have kids. Absolutely. We’re literally evolved to have that,” he said.

“You can take an alley cat or something like a bobcat, like some like wild creature that would normally be quite fierce and unfriendly and like kill anything it came across. But the moment it has cubs or puppies or kittens, it becomes a loving mom. The cat that was really mean is like taking care of its little kittens.”

“It’s Instinct. It’s genetic programming. So, people should really expect that if they have kids, they will improve their quality of life, not make it worse,” Musk stated.

In May last year, Musk warned about the declining birth rate in the United States, saying that people should “celebrate having kids.”

“USA birth rate has been below min sustainable levels for ~50 years,” Musk wrote in a May 24, 2022, post on Twitter. “Contrary to what many think, the richer someone is, the fewer kids they have. I am a rare exception. Most people I know have zero or one kid.”

A British rapper, Zuby’s real name is Nzube Olisaebuka Udezue, and he is a growing prominent social commentator on Twitter.