(And What It Tells Us About Freedom, Algorithms, and Who Really Owns Your Voice)
There’s this moment I keep replaying in my head. November 2024. Elon Musk’s political allegiances are no longer dog whistles but foghorns. Trump’s back in the game. And suddenly, Twitter… sorry, X… becomes persona non grata amongst a very specific subset of the internet.
“I’m leaving,” they announced. Loudly. Repeatedly. With screenshots of their Bluesky invites and their fresh Threads accounts. The digital equivalent of packing your bags and standing in the doorway, waiting for someone to beg you to stay.
Except… most of them didn’t actually leave, did they?
They posted about leaving. They posted on X about how they were leaving X. They logged into Bluesky twice, realised it was basically Twitter circa 2009 with worse threading, got bored, and quietly slithered back to the chaos they claimed to despise.
And here’s the thing that fascinates me: it didn’t matter. Not to Elon. Probably not even to the business itself.
Which raises a rather uncomfortable question… were we ever in control to begin with?
The Myth of the Exodus
Let’s be honest about what happened. This wasn’t a mass migration. It was theatre. Performative outrage from people who’d built their entire professional identities on a platform they suddenly found morally objectionable. As if the moral problems started the moment Elon aligned himself with Trump, and not, say, when the platform was amplifying conspiracy theories, enabling harassment campaigns, or quietly tweaking its algorithm to boost rage bait for years before that.
Don’t get me wrong… I understand the impulse. When someone you despise takes over something you’ve invested in, you want to burn it all down and start fresh somewhere pure and unsullied. It’s romantic. It’s principled.
It’s also completely ineffective if you’re not actually willing to follow through.
Because Elon didn’t blink. Advertisers fled. Revenue took a hit. And yet X kept chugging along, arguably more influential than ever, because influence isn’t built on advertiser goodwill anymore. It’s built on attention. And nothing generates attention quite like chaos overseen by a billionaire with a god complex and a direct line to the Oval Office.
The people who left… or claimed to leave… they wanted X to collapse without them. They wanted their departure to matter. But platforms don’t collapse when users leave. They collapse when they become irrelevant. And X, for all its faults, is many things. Irrelevant isn’t one of them.
Free Speech… For Whom, Exactly?
Now, Elon loves to bang on about free speech. It’s his rallying cry. His north star. The reason he bought Twitter in the first place, apparently… to restore the digital town square to its rightful place as a bastion of open discourse.
Noble, right?
Except free speech isn’t what’s happening on X. What’s happening is amplification. And amplification is selective.
Every algorithm is. Facebook amplifies what keeps you scrolling through baby photos and radicalising conspiracy posts. TikTok amplifies what keeps you watching dance trends and cottage cheese recipes. X amplifies what keeps you angry, arguing, and coming back for more.
And when the person who owns the algorithm also has political investments, business interests tied to government contracts, and a stated allegiance to a particular political movement… well, that’s not a town square. That’s a loudspeaker pointed in one very specific direction.
Free speech means you can say what you want without the government locking you up. It doesn’t mean your voice gets equal weight in the algorithm. It doesn’t mean your posts get seen. It doesn’t mean the playing field is level.
Elon’s version of free speech looks a lot like “freedom for people I agree with and also blue tick subscribers who pay me eight quid a month.” Everyone else? You’re shouting into the void, mate. Good luck with that.
Social Media Is a Financial Vehicle (And You’re the Fuel)
Here’s the uncomfortable bit. The bit most people don’t want to hear.
Social media isn’t a public service. It never was. It’s a financial vehicle designed to extract value from your attention, your data, your engagement, and your emotional volatility.
Every platform is owned by someone. Every platform serves someone’s interests. And those interests are rarely aligned with yours.
Facebook wants you scrolling so they can serve you ads. TikTok wants you watching so they can serve you ads and also maybe hoover up a terrifying amount of data on behalf of… well, whoever’s asking. X wants you arguing because outrage drives engagement, and engagement drives… well, not ads anymore, apparently, but influence. And influence, as it turns out, might be more valuable than advertising revenue ever was.
You think you’re using these platforms to build your brand, grow your audience, share your message. And maybe you are. But you’re also feeding the machine. You’re creating content that makes these platforms valuable. You’re generating data that makes them powerful. You’re handing over your labour, your creativity, your attention… for free.
And in return? You get a follower count. A like count. A little dopamine hit every time someone engages with your post.
You’re not the customer. You’re the product. And if you’ve built your entire presence, your entire livelihood, your entire voice on someone else’s platform… you’re not an entrepreneur. You’re a tenant. And the landlord can change the locks whenever they fancy.
The Polyamorous Approach to Platform Loyalty
So what’s the answer? Spread yourself wide, as you said. Diversify. Don’t put all your eggs in one billionaire’s basket.
I hear you. I do. But here’s my problem with that advice: it’s exhausting.
Trying to maintain a presence on X, Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and whatever fresh hell launches next quarter… it’s a full-time job. Actually, it’s several full-time jobs. Each platform has its own culture, its own algorithm, its own unwritten rules about what works and what doesn’t.
And the moment you start trying to appease all of them? You lose yourself. You become a content machine, churning out variations on the same theme, optimised for five different algorithms, none of which actually care about you or your message.
You think you’re playing the game. But the game’s playing you.
Because here’s the thing: algorithms don’t reward authenticity. They reward consistency, frequency, and engagement. They reward you for showing up every single day, posting at the optimal time, using the right hashtags, replying to comments within the golden window, dancing to whatever tune the platform decides is important this week.
And the moment you stop? The moment you take a breath, a break, a holiday? The algorithm forgets you exist. Your reach plummets. Your engagement dies. And you’re back to square one, scrambling to rebuild what you’ve lost.
That’s not freedom. That’s indentured servitude with a smartphone.
What Are We Actually Building Here?
I think the real question… the one nobody wants to ask because the answer’s too uncomfortable… is this: what are we building?
Are we building something that lasts? Something that matters? Something that exists independently of whatever platform happens to be flavour of the month?
Or are we just chasing visibility? Renting space in someone else’s empire and hoping they don’t raise the rent?
Because if your entire presence depends on X, or Instagram, or TikTok… if all your audience, all your influence, all your income is tied to platforms you don’t own and can’t control… you’re not free. You’re vulnerable.
Elon could ban you tomorrow. Mark Zuckerberg could throttle your reach. TikTok could get banned entirely. The algorithm could change overnight, rendering everything you’ve built obsolete.
And then what?
This isn’t hypothetical, by the way. This has happened. Repeatedly. Facebook’s algorithm changes wiped out entire businesses built on organic reach. YouTube’s demonetisation policies destroyed livelihoods overnight. Twitter’s… sorry, X’s… verification chaos turned credibility into a joke.
The platforms don’t care. They’re not on your side. They’re on their side. And their side involves maximising profit, minimising liability, and keeping you hooked just long enough to extract value before discarding you.
The Landlord Can Change the Locks
Here’s what Elon understood that most people didn’t: bad news can be good news if you control the narrative.
Yes, he lost advertisers. Yes, people fled. Yes, the platform became more chaotic, more polarising, more… well, more in every possible way.
But he also centralised power. He made X indispensable to a specific political movement. He turned it into a tool, a weapon, a megaphone for a very particular worldview. And in doing so, he made it more valuable to the people who matter to him than it ever was as a neutral advertising platform.
That’s not free speech. That’s power.
And the uncomfortable truth is this: as long as we’re building our presence, our businesses, our voices on platforms we don’t own… we’re subject to the whims of whoever does own them.
Elon bought Twitter and rebranded it. Fine. It’s his. He can do what he likes with it. But we don’t have to play along.
We don’t have to accept that social media is the endgame. We don’t have to treat algorithmic visibility as the ultimate measure of success. We don’t have to hand over our labour, our creativity, our attention, and our data in exchange for a follower count and a faint hope that maybe, possibly, if we’re very good and very lucky, the algorithm might smile upon us today.
So What’s the Alternative?
Own your platform. Build your list. Create your space.
I know, I know. It sounds so 2008. So pre-Instagram. So… boring.
But email lists don’t have algorithms. Websites don’t get throttled. Newsletters don’t get shadowbanned. Podcasts don’t require you to dance for the TikTok gods.
Yes, use social media. Use it as a tool. Use it to drive traffic, to start conversations, to test ideas. But don’t build your house on rented land. Don’t make your entire presence dependent on platforms that could vanish, ban you, or simply stop caring about you tomorrow.
Because the internet is full of digital ghost towns. Platforms that were once essential and are now footnotes. MySpace. Vine. Google Plus. Tumblr, kind of. Snapchat, sort of. And one day… probably sooner than we think… X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok… they’ll join them.
The platform isn’t the point. The audience is. The message is. The thing you’re building… the thing that matters, the thing that lasts… that’s the point.
And if you don’t own it? It’s not really yours.
The Freedom Nobody Wants to Talk About
Here’s the final, uncomfortable truth: real freedom online isn’t about which platform you use. It’s about whether you’re willing to walk away from all of them.
Can you? Could you?
If X banned you tomorrow, would you still have a business? If Instagram shadowbanned you, would you still have an audience? If TikTok disappeared overnight, would you still have a voice?
If the answer’s no… you’re not free. You’re trapped. You’re dependent. You’re exactly where these platforms want you.
Elon didn’t buy Twitter to liberate you. He bought it to control the narrative. And every billionaire who owns a platform… Zuckerberg, Musk, whoever buys TikTok next… they’re doing the same thing.
They’re building empires. They’re consolidating power. They’re turning your attention, your data, your voice into their wealth.
And the only way out? Build something they can’t take away.
Own your list. Own your website. Own your voice.
Because the landlord can change the locks. The algorithm can forget you exist. The platform can disappear.
But what you own? That’s yours. And nobody… not Elon, not Zuckerberg, not any billionaire with a god complex and a server farm… can take it away.
So yeah. Use the platforms. Don’t let them use you.
And for god’s sake, stop building your empire on rented land.
Until Next Time
Discover more from Dominus Owen Markham
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