Elon Musk, who till the final week or so, was recognized on Twitter primarily for trolling and incurring the wrath of the SEC, has now set his sights on taking on the platform. Speaking at a TED convention on Thursday, the Tesla CEO positioned his hostile takeover bid not as one thing he needs to do, however as one thing he feels is “important to the function of democracy.”
“It’s important to the function of the United States as a free country and many other countries,” he stated. “Civilizational risk is decreased, the more we can increase the trust of Twitter as a public platform.”
That could sound like a lofty objective — and it’s not that totally different from how Jack Dorsey and different Twitter leaders concerning the platform — however Musk’s precise concepts for making Twitter extra “trustworthy” are weird and typically contradictory. It suggests he has little understanding of how Twitter works, a lot much less run the corporate.
During the interview, Musk repeatedly said he believed speech on Twitter ought to solely be constrained by what’s authorized. Twitter, he stated, “err on the side of, if in doubt, let the speech exist.” He stated that everlasting bans ought to be used sparingly. “A good sign as to whether there’s free speech is, [if] someone you don’t like is allowed to say something you don’t like, and if that is the case, then we have free speech.”
Besides being a considerably slim view of free speech, Musk’s personal observe file would look like at odds with this assertion. While he has zero expertise operating a social media firm, his actions as Tesla’s CEO recommend there are a lot of situations through which he’s notably much less dedicated to absolute free speech.
As Quartz , Musk has reportedly quite a few Tesla employees who disagree with him. Recently, one worker was for posting movies to his private YouTube channel that depicted flaws in Tesla’s self-driving software program operating on his personal automobile. Musk additionally reportedly tried to power a legislation agency, employed by Tesla and SpaceX, to fireplace an affiliate who had beforehand labored for his arch-nemesis the SEC, in an for the lawyer’s involvement with the company’s investigation of Musk. Incidentally, Tesla has confronted allegations of discrimination and is at the moment contending with from the state of California over its remedy of Black staff.
Trust and security consultants had been additionally fast to level out {that a} lack of content material moderation truly has a chilling impact on free speech. “Effective moderation is not inherently in conflict with free speech,” Samidh Chakrabarti, Facebook’s former head of civic integrity tweeted. “It is required for people to feel free to speak.”
This is extra than simply theoretical. Just ask former CEO Dick Costolo who famously presided over some of the poisonous eras in Twitter historical past due to a hands-off method to content material moderation. It was underneath his tenure as CEO that Gamergate and different focused harassment campaigns had been capable of drive scores of customers off the platform. Costolo that his failure to cope with trolls was an enormous mistake.
Others identified that much less moderation would shortly end in Twitter being overrun with spam and different shady — but fully authorized — content material. Even Musk appeared to contradict himself on this level, saying {that a} “top priority” can be to rid Twitter of the “spam and scam bots and bot armies” that often impersonate him.
Away from the tradition conflict battles over “free speech,” Twitter is going through of its personal. The firm remains to be in the course of , altering lots of its core options in an effort to search out new sources of income. It nonetheless has aggressive for customers and income that may show difficult even for seasoned Twitter insiders — which Musk is just not.
And Musk doesn’t even appear to know what he truly needs. He acknowledged that he was uncertain of if he would be capable to pull off truly shopping for Twitter (different shareholders appear on that time) and claimed to be unconcerned with getting cash from his funding. He claimed to have a “plan B,” however didn’t share particulars. He additionally admitted that his tweets are little greater than a “stream of consciousness” he typically composes whereas .
As with a lot else he does, it’s inconceivable to inform if he actually needs to totally management Twitter or if all that is yet one more elaborate troll. It may very well be each.
“I do think this will be somewhat painful,” he mused. On that, no less than, he’s spot on.
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