Inventor-Investor Elon Musk has surprised the world by offering to buy micro-blogging site Twitter for $43 billion. Elon Musk, the richest man globally, announced the offer in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.
In his disclosure, Elon Musk has said he would ‘unlock the extraordinary potential of Twitter’ after making the company his private ownership. Now, as an independent investor, Musk is keen on buying the whole of Twitter itself to make the company private and open for all.
Elon Musk, a free speech absolutist, had said that he did not have confidence in the Twitter management and would reconsider his share in the company if his offer was not accepted.
“If the deal doesn’t work, given that I don’t have confidence in management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market. I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” the Tesla CEO said categorically.
Why is Musk displeased with how Twitter is run
The SEC disclosure hinted that Elon Musk was not happy with the way Twitter functioned as a public platform. Elon Musk has been critical of Twitter for many months now over its content moderation and gate-keeper role. As stated by Musk, one of the significant reasons to make a hostile takeover of the platform was to make the company public and open-source the algorithm that moderates content arbitrarily.
A day after making an offer that the Twitter board cannot refuse, Elon Musk spoke to TED Talks, where he reiterated that it is very important to make Twitter an inclusive arena of free speech. He referred to the micro-blogging site as a ‘de facto public town square’.
“It is important that people have both the reality and perception that they are able to speak freely in the bounds of the law, and one of the important things I believe Twitter should do is to open source their algorithm and make any changes to their tweets… so that there is no behind the action scenes or manipulation either algorithmically or manually,” said Elon Musk.
Well, Elon Musk’s attempt to take over Twitter did not begin recently. The multi-billionaire has been critical of Twitter’s operation and was very vocal about the manipulation it does, especially its targeting a section of users. In late March this year, Musk had tweeted, “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy. What should be done?”
He had asked whether there was a need for a new platform.
A day before that, Musk reiterated his demand for Twitter to open source its algorithms.
In reaction, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey had responded by saying, “The choice of which algorithm to use (or not) should be open to everyone.”
Musk strongly believes in the idea that Twitter is a de facto public square that infringes on the perceived right of individuals to tweet.
Again on Wednesday, a day after Musk had revealed he had quietly become Twitter’s largest shareholder, he wrote that his actions are to help Twitter realise its “potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe.”
Despite Elon Musk categorically suggesting that he wants to open up one of the most influential social media platforms to the public and adhere to the principles of free speech, the left liberals and journalists, who claim to speak truth to power and defenders of free speech are not happy with Musk.
For them, Twitter should not be a private company but a tightly regulated entity managed by its left-leaning wokes, who often act as gatekeepers of the platform getting to decide who tweets what on the platform.
The Left is unhappy
While most of the users celebrated the fact that Twitter could finally be free from its ideological bias and arbitrary decision-making protocols, the left is whining about losing an influential platform that worked as a propaganda tool to push their carefully crafted narratives.
As Twitter is all set to be free and transparent, the left-liberals and the free speech warriors across the world have launched an attack on Elon Musk and have also threatened to quit Twitter. Interestingly, it is the journalists and intellectuals who are averse to the idea of Twitter being an open platform.
The western press has vehemently opposed the idea of Elon Musk owning Twitter and is coming up with new conspiracy theories to suggest that Musk will only hamper the idea of free speech by centralising Twitter’s content moderation. The New York Times, Washington Post, and the Atlantic have published a series of editorials in the past two days to indulge in fear-mongering on how Musk’s hostile takeover could be the end of free speech in the world.
Washington Post is owned by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos.
The Washington Post thinks Elon Musk taking a stake in Twitter to fight for Free Speech will be bad because he’s the richest man in the world and we need to “prevent rich people from controlling our channels of communication”.
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) April 9, 2022
Zero self awareness. pic.twitter.com/QvjBIsz3rU
In India, the pattern is the same. The so-called journalists and intellectuals are not so happy that a successful innovator like Elon Musk will own a big-tech platform like Twitter. How can an engineer own a platform that works on the ideals of social sciences is their argument.
The Print columnist says Musk should ‘stick to cars and rockets’
Shivam Vij, a self-proclaimed journalist, took to Twitter to advise Elon Musk on what he should do to protect free speech. According to Shivam Vij, free speech absolutists like Musk are the biggest enablers and friends of hate speech. He wished that Musk never get to buy Twitter.
Shivam Vij asked Elon Musk to ‘stick to cars and rockets’.
Well, Shivam Vij is not the only person who advised Elon Musk. Nitin Pai, another accomplished person in the field of “social sciences”, also jumped on Twitter to pontificate on Musk’s choices and decisions. Pai, an intellectual himself, wrote a Twitter thread to explain why it was not written for Elon Musk to open up Twitter and adhere to free speech norms.
According to Pai, Musk is wrong. “The problem with Twitter is not its free speech policies. Rather that it is not doing enough to elevate the level of public discourse commensurate with its scale and power,” Pai claimed in his series of tweets.
Musk is wrong. The problem with twitter is not its free speech policies. Rather that it is not doing enough to elevate the level of public discourse commensurate with its scale & power.
— Nitin Pai (@acorn) April 15, 2022
The meltdown is not limited to the press and media alone. The left-liberals in the US have almost lost it ever since Elon Musk announced that he is considering buying in its entirety.
One Pam Keith, Esq, asked Elon Musk to “F*ck off” and accused him of being a racist.
The new form of protest that the Left is employing in the west is to threaten Musk of quitting the platform if he ever bought it. Many social media users from the Left have now shared that they would leave Twitter for good if Elon Musk would get hold of the micro-blogging site.
It is intriguing to know why the left does not Twitter to be an open platform. It seems like the left-liberals, who pontificate about free speech and expression, fear that Twitter, in its new avatar, would open up opportunities for everyone to express their ideas, which is contrary to what is happening in reality. The left-liberals, ironically, have become gate-keepers of speech, who get to decide on who deserves to speak and who gets silenced.
Elon, seriously.
— GuiXimenes 🇧🇷🏴 (@GuiXimEnEs) April 14, 2022
It's a consensus in social sciences that free speech can't be limitless. You should keep investing your time in things you actually know how it works, like the engineering fields that u are great on it. Leave social matters to people that study it.
They consider free speech as a one-way street, where it is easier for them to handle the content and set narratives. However, with the possibility of Elon Musk buying and opening up Twitter for everyone, their hold on the platform will be lost. Hence, they have now picked up the bogey of hate speech and limits to freedom of speech to lecture on the perils that arise from Twitter being bought by billionaires like Elon Musk.
