NEWS
CULTURE
FEATURE
OPINION
The upper school community works to rebuild trust after discovering a homophobic slur written in a gender-neutral bathroom.
Check out Culture Editor Isabella X. ’24’s picks for the best books of 2022. If anything sparks interest, head to The Current’s display in the WRC.
The Nueva visual arts department adapts to a lack of work space within the upper school campus.
Guest writer and DWI teacher Morgan Snyder explains why seniors should consider taking a gap year.
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12/14/2022
THE
NUEVA CURRENT THE NUEVA SCHOOL, SAN MATEO, CA 94403
INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: @THENUEVACURRENT
Vox populi:
Opening the Birdcage Elon Musk assumed complete control of Twitter in October. What could that mean for free speech?
I
STORY ART
Owen Y-L. Anwen C.
t’s not often that a 300-billiondollar company topples at the hands of a nine-word tweet. On Elon Musk’s Twitter 2.0, that may be just the beginning. On Nov. 10—15 days after Musk completed his purchase of the social media platform—a Twitter account posing as the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly erroneously posted: “We are excited to announce insulin is free now.” The tweet amassed tens of thousands of likes and retweets before the account was eventually suspended, hours later and after Eli Lilly’s stock price plummeted 4.37%. This was just one example of the volatility and chaos that followed Musk’s takeover. Hateful and misleading speech spiked, half of the platform’s top 100 advertisers steered away, and the hashtag #RIPTwitter went viral as users mourned the downfall of the site.
In the Eli Lilly debacle, the fingers all seemed to point to one glaring issue: the blue checkmark. Since 2009, Twitter has used the coveted symbol to “verify,” or denote as notable and authentic, accounts such as government agencies, major brands, and celebrities. Accounts of “individuals or groups associated with coordinated harmful activity, or hateful content” or “parody, newsfeed, commentary, and unofficial fan accounts” were ineligible for verification, according to Twitter’s website. Everything changed when Elon Musk’s bid to purchase Twitter for $44 billion went through in October. As part of his pledge to expand free speech on the platform, the billionaire tech magnate and self-proclaimed free speech absolutist announced that the checkmark would now be an automatic benefit for subscribers to Twitter Blue, the platform’s paid service, regardless of their identity or intent. “Power to the people!” Musk proclaimed in a Nov. 1
tweet announcing the shift. The power of the people, however, was a power easily abused. The floodgates were now open for parody accounts and other digital delinquents seeking a veil of legitimacy for the simple price of $7.99 per month. Countless doppelgängers—Donald Trump, George W. Bush, even faux Jesus Christ—quickly emerged, rendered virtually indistinguishable from legitimate public figures and organizations. Eli Lilly had unfortunately fallen victim to one of these blue-checked impersonators—an eight-dollar prank turned billion-dollar quagmire. Yet, it was merely a symptom of a much larger storm brewing beneath the surface, as the world’s wealthiest person solidified his grip on Twitter and began his crusade for freedom of speech. CONTINUED ON PAGE 12
ISSUE THREE
VOLUME 6