Musk Buys Twitter, Now What?

Shortly after news of Musk’s move to buy Twitter broke he was appointed to Twitter’s executive board making it clear that his stake in the company is anything but passive. 

So now what?

Twitter seems like the essential communication tool of our time. It has been up rooting all traditional aspects of our world and is ushering us into a new age of data transmission. But, the site has had many issues trying to define the line between free speech and misinformation. 

Musk has said that his first order of business would be to add an “Edit” button so people can go back and correct tweets. YAWN. Edit buttons are peanuts compared to changes that could actually be made to make the site better for society. 

Many on conservative Twitter hinted at the possibility that Donald Trump would be allowed back on the site after being banned for January 6th. While there is an argument to be made that the President of the United States being censored by Twitter is a massive infringement of the First Amendment, is this really going to instill the change in Twitter that would make the site intrinsically better? 

Others have suggested that Musk will be able to make changes to the infamous Twitter algorithm that has been accused of manipulating people’s feeds and shadow banning accounts that produce information that isn’t inline with the companies views. This would be an interesting development. At the heart of Twitter are the algorithms that control what the users see and who they interact with, major changes to this would create a new user experience. 

Unfortunately, just making changes to the algorithm isn’t going to change people’s experience on Twitter. The website is populated by the ideas and thoughts of people (and many BOTS). Bots continue to be a huge problem on the website as spam posting and DMing has been a large problem for a while. It has been speculated that public opinion can be heavily influenced by what information is being disseminated on the site and many countries have realized this. It is proven that Russia has an Internet Research Agency where people are paid to create Memes and other content with the sole intent of dividing people. Musk has the chance to provide real change not just for Twitter, but for the world. How would society change if our discourse became more open, transparent and less hostile? 

While it is unclear the exact direction Musk wants to take Twitter, it seems like he really believes Twitter is the “Town Square” of modern society and that free speech on this platform must be ensured.  Elon’s love for Memes, internet culture and Twitter itself is evident and his attempt at trying to make it better is a noble one. Here at Animal House Media Group, we wish him success in solving the Gordian Knot of our time.