There’s all kinds of power and influence of people through the press is a very traditional kind of indirect power for people to wield. When I talk about money as power it definitely includes the power to influence how people think and vote and act without putting an actual gun to their heads. Twitter is the new TV and TV was the new radio and the radio was the new newspaper… All kinds of wealthy and powerful people in the past sought control of the press, not only for their own desires, but also as a bargaining chip with other people with power: “do this for me and I’ll make you look good on my platform…”
I still think there’s a difference.
When people talk about wielding money like power, its more along the lines of
- if you don’t do what I say, I’ll destroy you by doing XYZ.
- you better change your laws or I can fuck shit up in some way.
- I can break the law because you can’t fucking touch me.
For Twitter he actually used his wealth as actual money to buy something you would buy with money.
He did get power from it yes, but I still think there’s a distinction when talking about wiedling it as power.
MangoCats@feddit.it 1 day ago
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Gotta say this difference seems very arbitrary. He bought a company, and platform. Both direct how people spend their time. A platform is obvious but a company, he directs what the people who work there work on. Its definitely a match to somewhere far past where money buys you things.