What Does Elon Musk's Twitter Takeover Mean for Us?

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It's a New Chapter for Twitter.

Last week, Twitter leadership announced it had agreed to sell the company to Elon Musk for roughly $44 billion. This takeover has important implications for Twitter users, and so I want to answer some of the FAQs I’ve been hearing lately:

1) Why does Musk want to buy Twitter? In my opinion— and again, this is just an opinion— but I think a big motivation behind Musk's decision to buy Twitter was a desire to show the world that… he can. Twitter is one of the most influential social media platforms in the world, and to just declare publicly that you’re going to take control of the company and then actually do it, is a huge power move. Twitter may not be Musk’s end goal here; he may be playing a long game, and Twitter is just one move to get to the end zone.

Again, that’s just my opinion. On this topic, most people are pointing to Musk’s desire to see the platform adhere to looser standards of free speech. Last week, Musk said: "Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated. Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it."

I think it’s safe to say that Musk has a bumpy road ahead where this is concerned. Shelling out $44 billion is going to seem easy compared to tackling issues of free speech on Twitter.

In recent years, social media platforms have been struggling to adequately balance protecting free speech and enforcing community guidelines restricting harmful content. This issue became especially complicated in the wake of the Capitol Riot, when it became painfully clear how Twitter could be weaponized to incite violence. And we all remember the finale of this frenzy: President Trump was kicked off of Twitter— as well as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.

Removing Trump from the platform was just one of many steps that Twitter has taken to try and moderate dangerous content. But Musk’s public stance on the issue has been that moderation equals censorship; and this stance makes it seem like under his leadership, Twitter will walk back some of the steps taken to limit harmful content.

The proof is with no other than the Twitter tyrant himself: as CNN points out, Musk has used Twitter to insult politicians, spread misleading information about COVID, and he’s made offensive remarks about the transgender community.

2) What changes will Musk actually make to the platform? Will Musk also change the Twitter icon to a shiba inu in honor of his beloved dogecoin? Only time will tell.

But Musk has said that he wants to, and I quote: "make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans." More specifically, Newsweek reports that Musk plans on introducing an edit button to allow people to change the composition of their tweets after publishing.

This feels like a recipe for disaster. Sure, this would help folks like me that sometimes type too fast and publish tweets with the occasional typo, but it seems like editing typos isn’t what this feature will be used for. This new feature would mean that someone who tweets an endorsement of something controversial can go back and edit that tweets and claim the endorsement never happened. Or, an online troll can harass someone and then edit their insults to compliments, which would be enough to drive anyone nuts. To me, this feature would be the ultimate opportunity for gaslighting, online bullying and avoiding accountability.

3) Will Trump be allowed back on Twitter? Some people have speculated that if Musk is looking to prove that Twitter is entering a new chapter with less restrictions on free speech, he may invite Trump back on the platform, which could have huge ramifications for the upcoming 2024 presidential election in the US. However, Trump told Fox News that he will not be returning to Twitter. Instead, Trump will stay on TRUTH— The Trump Media & Technology Group social media platform that launched in March.

4) What does it mean that the company will go from public to private? It’s much more common for private companies to go public— the opposite transition is more rare.

Newsweek argues that taking Twitter private means that Musk will be less constrained when making comments that may impact perception of the platform. Why? The owners of public companies have to be very careful, because if they say something inflammatory related to the company, the share price and company's value could plummet. Private companies do not have this issue.

But this lack of restraint doesn’t stop at Musk’s comments about Twitter. As a private company, Musk has more latitude to make changes to the platform without needing to factor in how it will affect the share price. To me, that means less accountability to users.

With public companies, the stock price is almost a way for investors to communicate with the company and give feedback. After an announcement from the company, a drop in stock price translates to a “thumbs down” from the public. A stock price increase, a "thumbs up." Now, that communication channel for Twitter is gone.

xo,

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