In another terrifying development today, an investment firm made up of mega-Republican donors, including Paul Singer and his group, “Elliot Management,” bought what is being called a “sizeable” stake in Twitter, with talk already of pushing out CEO Jack Dorsey.

Singer is a man who originally opposed Trump, but is now all-in on the Trumplican movement. He is so “all-in” that many people are fearing that Singer’s ultimate agenda is setting-up Twitter as a Trump and Republican platform, hostile to others.

Trump, of course, is the president who has seemingly dreamed about manipulating and controlling all media the entire tenure of his presidency, indeed he seems to long for the ability to rip the “free press” portion of the constitution right out of the parchment. (Yes, Twitter is a platform, not traditional media, but you’ll see how they come together in a second).

As per usual, it is all about loyalty. From The Guardian.

After a White House visit in February 2017, Trump said Singer “was very much involved with the anti-Trump or, as they say, ‘Never Trump’, and Paul just left, and he’s given us his total support and it’s all about unification”.

There is more worrisome stuff afoot. Trump and his group appear to want to turn Twitter into a “Facebook” without any limits on political advertising. In other words, seemingly wanting to be able to post flat-out lies, as they do on Facebook:

Twitter made headlines in October when it announced a ban on political advertising. Its use and potential manipulation by politicians of all stripes, from Trump to Democratic candidate Mike Bloomberg, remains a source of fierce contention.

With Trump, it is always about control and manipulation. He must impose his “truth” upon you. It is propaganda – the real goal, it is who he is, and it appears he is working, in part, through this group.

Elliott Management is an activist investor, which means it regularly pushes for change in companies in which it buys shares. Singer has even taken on whole countries: in 2016, after a relentless campaign, he secured a partial repayment of debts by Argentina, arising from its financial collapse in the early 2000s.

Great.

A management group that is activist in its management – meaning control – and one that has enjoyed success in pushing governments around, for both message and profit. It is also completely, 100%, Republican to the core. That’s who they are.

This is done.

There is nothing for us to do, except maybe support current management. But the way corporations are structured, it may be a done deal there, too. Turning Facebook into Twitter? I suppose it had to be done, because that’s who they are, and they already controlled Facebook, at least, as much as they believed necessary.

I wonder if they will change the name to Pravda? I wonder if Putin is behind some of the money, or at least behind the idea. Control of the media, especially social media? It’s who Putin is.

So many conflicts, so little time, so much control and manipulation, so little democracy and independent media, or platforms. I wonder if they struck now quickly, while everyone is paying attention to Coronavirus? I don’t know.

They do.

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Peace, y’all

Jason

[email protected] and on TWITTER @MiciakZoom