A couple of months ago i.e. prehistoric times in internet terms, I suggested we all get together and buy Fn Book so we could restore the principles of free speech. Yesterday Elon Musk “took my advice”… sort of. He purchased a huge stake in Twitter.
Okay, yeah, I’d love to take credit for giving my good pal Elon the idea but, truth be told, I doubt he even knows I exist, much less can be counted among my gross readership of three regulars. Okay, maybe two of those are really all that regular. It all depends on what the definition of the word “is” is. Right Bill? In fact, there is scant evidence anyone reads this blog or at least comes back to read it again. So be it. The point is Elon Musk bought Twitter stock after he chided them for their opposition to free speech. Kudos for that Mr. Musk.
The problem is, one person taking over a platform like Twitter could very well end up in the same place – a dictator deciding who can say what. We all have had enough of that. Or at least I have. Thus I post to my blog where I pay the bills. Even IF someone dumped in a dollar now and then, (HA!) I’m not beholden. If you want to donate and bitch, here’s your money, bite me. Y’all can bitch for free.
So the idea I put forth was we all buy a share or two of Fn Book and kick the controlling bastards out. Then we can say what we want ’cause I ain’t payin no censor “factchecker”. Well that idea went over like a lead balloon, or so I thought. Then along comes Elon Musk. The only problem is, he got it all wrong.
Elon, if you ARE reading this, I know you are a smart guy and I guess you’re pretty good at making money but really, you boffed this one up. Then again, I suppose if you only bought one share and encouraged the rest of us to do the same, well, we can probably figure how that might turn out. So maybe it was an enhancement of sorts, but now what? Wait! I’ve got another idea!
What if you announced a “matching” program where you will give a share to anyone who buys a share of Twitter? Sure, you could just hand out shares like Santa tosses candy at Christmas parades, but I think you’ll agree that whole “something for nothing” scenario is bad on principle. So like I said – match. Now here’s the rules as I see them – you pledge to give one share and only one share to anyone who buys up to ten shares. After that, they are on their own. The idea is not to encourage investment in Twitter but to offer an incentive to We the People to take action and buy out big tech. Then we can kick the authoritarians out. It would also leverage your purchase. Since you own ten percent, if we all bought ten shares then by the time you’ve divested yourself of your holdings, we’d own most, if not all of the company. Sweet.
The really good news is Twitter is now at $50 per share so ten shares is not at all as hard to purchase as the same number of Fn Book shares. In short, we can do this. Now all we need is for you to actually read this and act.