Using Twitter as a weapons platform, apartheid child Elon Musk has become a major non-state actor threatening the national security of the United States. Treating what was once the world’s dominant social media conveyance as a toy, Musk decided to temporarily “disappear” Ukraine from Twitter’s virtual map of the world by eliminating the country’s code of UA used for two-factor authentication. In addition, Ukraine’s international phone code of +380 was also briefly deleted by Twitter as an option for creating or verifying accounts using the Short Message Service or SMS.
Musk, who has become an inveterate liar, rivaled in that category only by Donald Trump, claimed that the elimination of Ukraine was due to an anti-bot operation launched by Twitter. The former world’s wealthiest man had previously gone on the record in support of Russia by urging Ukraine to cede to the Russian invaders all the Ukrainian territory either occupied or claimed by Moscow as a “peace” plan. These regions include Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. Musk also called for what would be left of Ukraine under his plan be declared perpetually neutral. Musk denied reports that he spoke to Vladimir Putin prior to issuing his “peace” plan for Ukraine. It is noteworthy that Twitter is banned in Russia by the government.
Twitter users reported that Musk’s actions resulted in various Ukrainian accounts, including those for news feeds and charities, being blocked. Musk also reportedly ordered accounts that reported the removal of the Ukraine country code to be blocked. It was not the first time that Musk attempted to coerce Ukraine. In October of this year, SpaceX, which provides the Starlink services to Ukraine, issued the following statement: “We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time.” The U.S. Department of Defense and the governments of Britain and Poland were forced to step in to ensure the communications umbrella over Ukraine by defraying the cost for maintaining thousands of Starlink terminals in the country.
Musk has also called for Taiwan to lose its independence and be absorbed by China as a “special administrative region,” giving it the same status as Hong Kong and Macau, where the Chinese boot has stamped out any vestiges of democratic rule. In pursuit of this goal, Musk could eliminate Taiwan’s country codes of TW and +886 and cause the same disruption for Taiwan’s access to Twitter as was visited upon Ukraine by the right-wing megalomaniac.
Palestinian leaders and activists are also concerned that Musk, who is publicly close to returning right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, will apply blockades onto the PS country code used for Palestine, as well as the +970 phone code.
The Biden administration has rightly determined that the government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) should examine the national security implications of Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and the financial ties of all of Musk’s companies—Twitter, Tesla, and SpaceX—to Saudi Arabia, China, Qatar, and Russia. Last month, President Biden said Musk’s “relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at.”
It is very apparent that Musk and his skeletal technical team at Twitter are playing games with country codes. At around the same time that Ukraine disappeared as a country on Twitter, the Twitter account labels for Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were stated as being those of Nigeria. The Foreign Ministry in Oslo tweeted to Twitter the following: “Dear @TwitterSupport, as much as we enjoy our excellent bilateral relations and close alphabetical vicinity with Nigeria, we would much appreciate if you could label us as Norway P.S. That also goes for Prime Minister @jonasgahrstore and Foreign Minister @AHuitfeldt.”
It appears that the product of apartheid and African emerald mining wealth is out to break his new toy even before Christmas.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
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Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist, author and nationally-distributed columnist. A member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the National Press Club. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
