Musk called free speech the “bedrock of a functioning democracy”, and Twitter the “digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated”.
Twitter is now a private company and Elon Musk is its owner. As expected, the company announced that it has accepted Musk’s $54.20 per share buyout offer. The world’s richest person is paying $44 billion in cash to acquire the social media platform. He is making a $21 billion equity commitment and the remainder is sourced in the form of debt and margin loan financing.
Musk, a strong advocate of free-speech wants to free the blue-bird app from the supposed cage of censorship. Even the Twitter founder and ex-CEO Jack Dorsey says, “Elon is the singular solution I trust”.
In principle, I don’t believe anyone should own or run Twitter. It wants to be a public good at a protocol level, not a company. Solving for the problem of it being a company however, Elon is the singular solution I trust. I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness.
— jack (@jack) April 26, 2022
So, let’s see how Musk envisions this free-speech future for Twitter.
Elon Musk on making Twitter a free-speech digital town square
Commenting on the Twitter deal announcement, 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. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spambots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
As some critics are suggesting, a way Musk, a Twitter power user, can act for the betterment of the platform is by introducing changes to make his new purchase a powerful and secure messaging solution as well as a community platform that can work on scale.
Speaking of scale, how he intends to fix the content moderation challenges and whether he is planning to kill all bots, even the useful ones, is something to be seen.
Previously, while making his “best and final offer”, Musk had said, “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy. However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company. Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.”
That’s Elon for you. The guy now has a social media platform under his belt that already included SpaceX, Tesla, The Boring Company, and Neuralink.
Let’s see how things pan out for Twitter in the coming times.
Meanwhile, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has said while announcing the deal, “Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.”
Later at a town-hall meeting, he was quoted as saying, “Once the deal closes, we don’t know which direction the platform will go. We don’t have all the answers. This is a period of uncertainty.”
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