After billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter for about $ 44 billion, everyone has raised many questions about how the company will change under his leadership. Will Tesla boss make this social network better? Do you use your sharp wits and business savvy to drive change or will you take steps to eliminate harassment, conflict and misinformation?
Here’s what he says he’ll do next:
Loosen up content rules in the name of free speech
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO describes himself as a “free speech absolutist” and has criticized what he sees as excessive censorship on online platforms.
He nodded to these beliefs in his statement announcing the purchase by saying that “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.”
Musk has argued that social networks should not delete comments that are offensive but still legal. In a recent interview at a TED conference, he said, “If it’s a gray area, let the tweet exist.”
Twitter currently prohibits harassment, abuse, and posts intended to cause physical harm to someone. The platform also has other railings, such as a ban on COVID-19 related misinformation.
Social media experts wonder about Musk’s attempt to relax the rules of interaction on Twitter. They say that could license harassers, trolls and others to abuse the platform to target people.
They are also worried that the loosening of rules on Twitter will empower those who want to exploit the platform by spreading misinformation or outright lies, about political events, government officials, etc. government and issues related to public health and safety.
One of the most requested product changes by Twitter users is the edit button.
Unlike Facebook, Instagram, and other social media apps, it’s not possible to change content on Twitter once it’s published.
Musk has said he’s in favor of letting people change what they say in tweets, a proposal that has stirred up heated debate among academics, journalists and other heavy users of the platform. .
Experts fear that adding the edit button feature will be weaponized by bad actors, who could use it to cover up abuse or harassment as if it never happened or to trick or manipulate people.
But others say safeguards could be put in place so that tweets can be edited to remove typos and show a history of how tweets have been edited to keep the original content.
Open Up Twitter’s Algorithm to the Public
Musk has said that software that determines what people see and how widely viral content on Twitter should be open. He’s in favor of placing Twitter’s algorithm on GitHub, a popular site for programmers to share computer code.
While some advocates of more transparency at social media companies say it could be a step toward more openness, others say that revealing the complex and dense algorithm of Twitter to the masses will achieve the very little effect. Furthermore, allowing anyone to see Twitter’s algorithm could give spammers and malicious actors a way to exploit the system.
Then there’s the fact that a social network the size of Twitter processes billions of pieces of content every day. How and why tweets went viral, as well as how Twitter’s recommendation system works, is so dense and complex that the company’s own software engineers can be confused trying to understand its logic. And without basic user data, which won’t be made public, the algorithm alone will likely provide some clues as to how ratings work at Twitter.
Launch a war on ‘bot armies’
Fighting the proliferation of bots on Twitter – fake accounts programmed to reply to tweets on certain topics – is another change Musk supports.
Musk’s business empire is known for attracting a fair amount of bots, including those in favor of his electric car company Tesla that have attacked Musk’s critics.
He did not say that he wanted to rein in those types of bots, but he did suggest that there should be a crackdown on fraudulent bots that promote crypto hustle.
“If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!” Musk tweeted last week, adding that he’d like to “authenticate all real humans.”
It should be noted that Twitter already has strong rules against spam, and it prohibits things like attempting to artificially influence conversations on the platform with fake accounts and bots, so the question remains how exactly will Musk reinforce an already robust anti-spam policy?
Scrap advertisements
Currently, nearly 90% of Twitter’s revenue comes from advertising, but the company has struggled to attract advertisers to the platform, which often turns into political firestorms and brawls. ugly online.
With the company going private, it won’t be subject to the same pressure from shareholders to consistently grow ad revenue. Musk has said that they should switch to a subscription model.
And one big unknown: Restore Donald Trump?
Musk has not publicly said whether he would allow former President Donald Trump to return to the platform after the company permanently suspended him for rhetoric that broke its rules and sparked a scandal. besieged the United States Capitol on January 6.
In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Trump called Musk “a good man,” saying he was pleased with the billionaire’s acquisition, but Trump said he had no plans to try back to Twitter. Instead, Trump said he would focus on his alternative social network called Truth Social.
At the duel Monday afternoon, a Twitter employee asked Parag CEO Agrawal if Trump would be reinstated. Agrawal says that’s a question for Musk.
“Once the deal closes, we don’t know which direction the platform will go,” he said.
Twitter took some steps in that direction with the introduction of Twitter Blue last year, a premium service that costs $2.99 a month for extra features, like the undo button that allows tweets to be deleted. recovered before they are sent out.
Musk has said that Twitter Blue should be cheaper, that if people are paying, they don’t need to see ads and that the cryptocurrency that started as a joke, Dogecoin, should be an acceptable form of payment. for a Twitter subscription.
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