The Future of Twitter
With the world's richest man now a member of the board, what does the social media mogul now do?
Elon Musk (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)
Recently, Elon Musk announced that he was now the largest stakeholder in Twitter and that he would be joining the Board of Directors. This has led to cheers from free-speech advocates on the platform and immediately after it was announced, Twitter’s stock price bounced up almost 30 percent. This announcement shocked a lot of people. Elon had said before he was seriously considering creating a new platform. Before this announcement, he posted multiple times asking people if they thought Twitter “religiously adheres” to the principle of free speech.
The response to his post was overwhelmingly “no.” People do not believe Twitter is a place where free speech and ideas thrive. It is pretty understandable why this is, as current congressional representatives, political and entertainment figures, and even former presidents have been banned from the platform for what Twitter has labeled “misinformation.”
Free speech advocates have been clamoring for an alternative to Twitter, exemplified by the fact that multiple sites have popped up to replace the social media giant in the past couple years. While none of these have been particularly successful in toppling the media giant they have made waves in the social media scene and attracted millions of users.
Musk will clearly have a large impact on how Twitter regulates itself in the future. This is proven by two things. One, the fact that he was already asking Twitter users what they thought of Twitter’s policies. He followed up his original tweet about free speech by saying that the consequences of the poll would be “important.” He also asked if people wanted an edit button. It is easy to see what he meant when he said that.
Second, we can look at the conversations held among members of the media. Those who have cheered on Twitter and Facebook’s crackdowns on speech now seem worried that all their hard work can be undone, at least on one of the platforms. Their concern shows us that change that could empower their opposition to fight back is on the horizon.
Since Musk’s announcement, the same question has been asked on every major media site: Will Donald Trump’s twitter account be reinstated? It is hard to say at this point, but Musk has claimed to be a free speech absolutist, and there is good reason to think we could see Trump dominating headlines with his tweets again in the future.
But I am more interested in seeing some other changes take place on the platform. First and foremost, I want to see misinformation labels removed from the platform entirely. Tech companies should not be gatekeepers of information. This practice of suppressing certain information has already led to objectively true stories being ignored and not getting the focus they need.
I also want to see the countless other individuals banned for their ideas and opinions reinstated. Trump is definitely the most infamous case, but thousands of other people have lost their voice because Silicon Valley has decided they should not be allowed to speak. It is time to make the Twitter a free marketplace of ideas, or it will never happen.
Musk will be up against a powerful machine. As the richest man in the world, there is likely no one better equipped to fight this battle. If he can now turn his words into actions, he will continue to have my support in the battle for freedom of thought and expression.