Twitter was established in 2006 in California. It quickly became a major platform where users were able to post and interact with messages (known as tweets), follow their friends and celebrities, and make connections in the global landscape. Twitter has millions of users daily and catapults people into the spotlight while they share their thought pieces, opinions, and controversies.
One of the most important factors of Twitter, since its inception, is the ability to tweet mostly freely, with the only things banned were threats, hate speech, and other violent rhetoric. Twitter themselves, on their website, state, “defending and respecting the user’s voice is one of our core values…”. Twitter absolutely changed the way that humans interact with each other, digest news, consume media, and more.
The idea of having a platform where everything is fair game is something that is very attractive to many users. So, imagine the horror when billionaire Elon Musk offered to purchase the platform outright – for a staggering $43 billion USD. Musk is a well-known public figure, one of the platform’s most-followed people with 81.6 million followers, and the owner of Tesla and SpaceX.
Musk is well known for his political leanings, as well as his stringent belief in free speech. In March, he tweeted a poll asking users whether the site adhered to the principle of free speech, inserting himself into the debate. More recently, Musk has tweeted (and swiftly deleted) a string of ideas for making the platform “better”. He asked about an edit button for tweets, suggesting the site’s HQ become a homeless shelter, and whether advertising should be removed from the platform’s premium service.
A lot of people are concerned with the political implications of a private owner of a platform like Twitter. Many are concerned that the once free app will be forced into one side or another, where people are banned for political reasons. Musk has shown himself to be quite hard to manipulate, and he is always set on his own opinions. However, there is always the concern that the platform can become something tailored to him and his ideas, which would be a big step toward destroying free speech in America, and later, the world.
Just recently SpaceX’s CEO and Founder Elon Musk got back on track and resumed the process of purchasing the social media giant Twitter. In private conversations and chats with his layers, he mentioned one of the reasons for this pause to be the possibility of WW3. Quote: “Let’s slow down just a few days…it won’t make sense to buy Twitter if we’re headed into World War 3,” read a lawyer, adding, “This is why Mr. Musk didn’t want to buy Twitter, this stuff about the bots, mDAU (monetizable daily active users) and Zatko is all pretext.”
Recent news about Musk’s plans on cutting down the workforce by as many as 75% makes it a worrisome situation for both: investors and employees.
Twitter users reacted to this news by creating an enormous number of posts, and memes and showing that they’re not going to Okay Elon’s decision on laying off that many people, nor they would be okay with Twitter’s revised Policy that can potentially be threatening and lead to a massive number of bans and profile blocks.
As the situation is in process, stay tuned and keep your eyes open. Subscribe to our newsletters to be posted on news like this.
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