With the purchase by Elon Musk, Twitter is heading into an unclear future. The online service comes under complete control of the world’s richest man, who has a wealth of experience on online platforms in how to garner attention with tweets ranging from the saucy to the erratic – but not how to conduct one.
One can only speculate about how exactly the service will change under the direction of the tech billionaire. In recent months, Musk has announced that he will ensure more freedom of expression on Twitter, fight fake accounts and automated posting bots, expand the service into an all-purpose app similar to WeChat in China, and the permanently banned US President Donald Trump back onto the platform. The latter is easy – not much is known about how Musk intends to reach the rest.
In addition, through sales of shares in electric car maker Tesla, loans and investor money, Musk scraped together around $44 billion for a company that made $1.47 billion in profits in its best year and was mostly in the red. So the conversion should also boost business so that the money doesn’t go to waste.
Political power in public discourse
Twitter changed the world with a simple concept: anyone can type a short message, it can reach anyone in the world. The ditching of a passenger jet in New York’s Hudson River, the first indications of the US action against terrorist leader Osama bin Laden – it was first found out via Twitter.
Celebrities, politicians and journalists give the platform power in public discourse. Trump sometimes even governed via Twitter: It is legendary that his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson learned of his dismissal from a tweet by the President.
But Twitter never managed to convert this weight in the world into lucrative business. And unlike Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, the founders didn’t secure shares with more voting rights that would cement their control. Thus, the online platform with global influence became a relatively easy takeover target. Recently, the activity of many celebrity accounts has also decreased noticeably. “Is Twitter dying?” Musk asked in the spring – a few days before he made the purchase offer.
Complaints mostly from the right spectrum
In the US in particular, Musk’s criticism of alleged restrictions on freedom of expression on Twitter caused concern. After all, the complaints about this in recent years have mainly come from the right-wing political spectrum. And they were mainly referring to Twitter’s crackdown on false information about the coronavirus — as well as calls for violence and Donald Trump’s lie that his presidential election victory had been stolen from him.
Other online platforms such as Facebook also introduced such restrictions to protect users’ health and prevent political tensions from escalating. Musk, on the other hand, believed that anything not prohibited by law should be allowed. “If people want there to be less free speech, they will ask governments to legislate in that direction,” Musk wrote on Twitter. “Accordingly, it is against the will of the people to go beyond the law.”
Europe passed stricter laws to combat hatred and hate speech on online platforms. Musk has already assured EU Commissioner Thierry Breton that Twitter will comply with European guidelines. In the USA, it is mainly the rules of the platforms that ensure this.
Shortly before the takeover was completed, Musk tried to smooth things over. In an open letter to advertisers, he wrote that Twitter must not become a “place of horror” where everything can be said without consequences. The service must be “warm and welcoming to all”.
Kanye West, “my friend”
A few weeks earlier, though, there was the Kanye West thing. When the rapper was banned from Instagram in October for an anti-Semitic post, he posted on Twitter for the first time in almost two years. “Welcome back to Twitter my friend,” Musk tweeted. Just a day later, West was also banned from Twitter for an anti-Semitic statement. Musk wrote afterwards that he spoke to West “and expressed my concern about his recent tweet – which I think he took to heart”. Will the boss then moderate himself in the future?
Musk recently showed political solidarity with the Republican Party, which is still dominated by Trump. US President Joe Biden’s Democrats have become a “party of division and hatred,” he wrote on Twitter in May. Musk received applause for this from right-wing Congressman Lauren Boebert – a Trump supporter and advocate of relaxed gun laws who stands up against corona measures, abortion, gay marriage and renewable energy.
“Obviously” he’s currently paying too much for Twitter, Musk recently admitted in a Tesla conference call. But the “long-term potential” holds a much greater value.
Musk’s recent attempts at foreign policy influence have caused concern, given the lack of clarity about how he intends to leverage that potential. He suggested making Taiwan a “special administrative region” under Chinese rule. The government in Taipei rejected this as “unacceptable”. Musk also called for Ukraine to give up Russia’s illegally annexed Crimea and agree to a UN-supervised referendum in its Russian-held territories.
Musk is also Tesla boss and the value of his shares there currently makes him the richest person in the world. Since Tesla has a large plant in Shanghai, which is very important for the company, there have been public concerns that Musk could, for example, restrict freedom of expression around China on Twitter in order to get on well with the leadership in Beijing .
Report in the “New York Times” Report in the “Wall Street Journal” Tweet by Musk
