Elon Musk and his Twitter takeover bid
Not so much about freedom of speech per se?
By now you may have heard about Elon Musk’s proposal to purchase Twitter (which is a long shot by the way).
What does it say about his intentions?
Musk likes to portray himself as a freedom of speech activist and thinks the social network should be more open to various voices.
The Tesla and SpaceX co-founder is revered for his innovative companies but often criticized for his controversial statements (you guess it, mostly via his Twitter account).
Musk’s brand of personal marketing can be rather abrasive, and such may not fit recent moderation efforts of major social medial platforms and national / regional regulators.
Complete freedom of speech is nice on paper yet unmoderated / under-moderated social media communities have faced challenges.
“Censorship is inevitable on large social network platforms. If you run one of sufficient size, you will be FORCED to censor things. Not by governments, or even by ‘users,’ but by the emergent dynamics of the social network itself.” Yishan Wong, former CEO of Reddit, stated in a tweet dated April 15.
So perhaps for Musk, the takeover bid is more of a strategy to preserve his marketing reach superpowers rather than conform to a “play nice(r)” approach. Recent history has shown that nonconformity can have dire consequences on account status, even if you’re a person of interest with a large following.
This story was first published on The PhilaVerse (my Substack newsletter).
