Murdoch Scared Of Twitter

As the saying goes, if you want to find out what Rupert Murdoch is thinking, read a Sun editorial. Well, this morning, the Super Soaraway Currant Bun is doing a shed load of editorialising, with its pretentiously styled “Sunifesto” for the General Election, which claims to reflect what We The People really want, but in reality is the usual wish list of More And Bigger Changes For The Benefit Of Rupe Personally Now.

That's what I think of youse bladdy social media, ya whining bladdy Pommie drongoes!

On the economy, the Sun wants to “cut tax”, which would benefit Rupe. On Britishness, readers are told “Nation’s identity paramount” (this from a paper owned by an Australian-born US Citizen). On Politics, the demand is “Give us honesty over spin and lies”, which suggests a dose of “physician, heal thyself”. And, predictably, for the BBC, we get “Strip it back to basics”, again to benefit Murdoch above everyone else.

But it is the response to social media where Rupe’s downmarket troops sell the pass in no style at all. On “Free Speech”, the message is “Social media mob must not prevail”. Er, hello? Social media is the ultimate expression of free speech, a large and disparate group of individuals given a voice by technology and able to articulate, and campaign for, what matters to them - not what matters to Rupert Murdoch.

What is the Murdoch press scared of?

The impression that Murdoch and his attack doggies are frightened shitless of something beyond their control is only reinforced by the detail of the Sun’s concerns. “The rise of social media has caused many in power to lose their heads … Twitter is fun but it also gives voice to mobs which find offence where none is meant and demand punishment … political correctness is taken too far and ends up neutering debate”.

They're scared of a little blue bird

And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here. One, anyone pretending that Twitter is some sort of haven of political correctness needs, in the words of the old Ford Fiesta advert, to Get Out More. And two, “mobs” which “find offence” and “demand punishment” describes very well the behaviour of the press pack in full flight, pursuing, cornering, intruding on, threatening and monstering its targets.

But when that happens, we are told that this is a mere side-effect of our allegedly free and fearless press, which, in the case of the now-defunct Screws - that would have been one of your titles, Rupe - meant a cesspool of significant and organised criminality, and management who were prepared to act like a legitimised Mafia. It may have looked free to Rupe, but it sure as heck didn’t look that way to the man or woman in the street.

Now that something threatens that stranglehold, Murdoch shows that he is scared of it: scared of being able to bend politicians to his will, scared of no longer being able to trash opposition and destroy his enemies, scared that technology has overtaken him. In his cosy corporate world, Rupert Murdoch is safe in the knowledge that his money makes him rather more equal than the rest. On Twitter, it counts for nothing.

But it’s too late. The Sun’s words are laughable, meaningless. Murdoch is out of time.