Episode 2184: Should Elon Musk be arrested for all the lies and hate on X?

Last Saturday, on our regular That Was The Week tech roundup, Keith Teare and I discussed the French decision to imprison Telegram founder Pavel Durov. Today, we discuss the theoretical imprisonment of Elon Musk, an idea touted yesterday by Robert Reich in The Guardian. Elon Musk, according to Reich, is “out of control” and one way to “rein him in” is to “threaten Musk with arrest if he doesn’t stop disseminating lies and hate on X”. Lock him up, in other words. For Keith Teare, this reflects the increasingly authoritarian nature of American progressives like Reich. Perhaps. But, as we discuss today, the social media mogul Musk is a different kind of beast from 20th century media owners. So reining him in probably requires different strategies from those that tried make moguls like Rupert Murdoch or William Randolph Hearst accountable for the lies and hate spewed by their newspapers and tv stations.

Keith Teare is the founder and CEO of SignalRank Corporation. Previously, he was executive chairman at Accelerated Digital Ventures Ltd., a U.K.-based global investment company focused on startups at all stages. Teare studied at the University of Kent and is the author of “The Easy Net Book” and “Under Siege.” He writes regularly for TechCrunch and publishes the “That Was The Week” newsletter.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

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