Post Date: Post Date – 12:15 AM, Tuesday – Nov 1st
When the world’s richest people go shopping and buy the world’s most influential public conversation platform, the consequences can be very damaging. Combined with this weak regulatory scrutiny, things can go wrong, raising questions about the future of social media. Maverick billionaire Elon Musk has started to spark public outrage by offering bizarre and daunting views on certain social issues after closing a $44 billion takeover deal. Cleanup, the immediate removal of top Twitter executives, including its CEO. Parag Agarwal. More importantly, he is delisting the company’s stock and taking it away from public shareholders. With this, microblogging sites are entering uncharted territory. Unlike public companies, private companies do not have to publicly disclose their performance on a quarterly basis. They are also subject to less regulatory scrutiny and can be more tightly controlled by owners. That means Musk can make changes to Twitter — including tweaking the platform’s content rules, finances and priorities — without taking into account the concerns of the investing public. In fact, owners of social media sites have disproportionate power. The oligarchs of the internet world not only have larger audiences than the early media tycoons, but they operate with fewer restrictions. The veil of secrecy that comes with being a private company, combined with the sheer indispensability of social media platforms, guarantees a stronger system of checks and balances and greater transparency and accountability. Although Musk calls himself a “free speech absolutist,” his online behavior is the exact opposite.
There is widespread concern that under its new owner, Twitter could become a platform for far-right hate mongers. Musk exacerbated those concerns by announcing his intention to bring Donald Trump back to the site. He may also relax content moderation rules. There are fears that Twitter, owned and controlled by Musk, will allow the unlimited spread of disinformation and misinformation on Twitter in the name of free speech, as long as it discredits his political opponents and celebrates and enriches himself and his allies. The need to balance free speech and healthy debate is a challenge for social media platforms. Many see Musk as the Rupert Murdoch of the tech generation, planning to use Twitter’s algorithms to distract and promote right-wing thinking. Musk’s stated goal of being an angel of open, civilized discourse is incompatible with his natural urge to turn the discourse in a direction he agrees with. He has positioned himself as a technological genius who can break the rules and benefit humanity in his own way; whether it’s saving the planet with electric cars, saving war-torn Ukraine with his satellite system, or launching a mission to Mars.
