Who Should Buy Twitter?

If you’ve been keeping up with current technological events, or Elon Musk’s life, for some reason, you most likely have heard of his bid to own Twitter and make it private. He aims to take Twitter in a different direction than the one it’s currently drifting towards, allegedly towards a more open and relaxed direction than the increasing boa constrictor grip that has been tightening over roughly the past decade. This process was accelerated in 2016 after Donald’s Trump election – and some people have speculated that Elon Musk would reinstate his account were he to take control of the board.

In relation to this, is that this would be of much more significance than various unsuccessful attempts to usurp or “secede” from Twitter via mass exodus, with platforms like Gab, Truth Social and Parler relatively garnering much less attention, turning into an echo chamber, and/or, ironically, having even more restrictive rules than those of Twitter.

Before I delve into this discussion further, let me get this out of the way. Elon Musk is not your friend. What he ultimately wants is to stand apart from the rest. The main purpose of this move is as something that he sees as benefitting him and his assets in the long run. He is not a champion of free speech or whatever it is that the average plebeian conceives he is, insofar as that such an environment would be one that would give him an advantage over the current one.

What this primarily is, is a struggle between obscenely rich groups and individuals. However, as with almost every such struggle, the results of this will affect the direction of public discourse online across many regions. This is why many who are not in such a position are waiting for the outcome of this expectantly. My opinion is that Musk is somewhat probable to buy Twitter, leaning towards the less likely side. The longer he takes, the less of a chance he will have to do this, with the odds stacking against him as the heavy artillery is brought out to foil him.

So, why would such an environment benefit Musk, and why does he desire to buy Twitter beyond the apparent financial prospects. Musk is one to thrive on controversy. He is a shrewd businessman, but also impulsive and at times reckless. He enjoys running his mouth – like calling someone a “pedo guy” likely over a personal dispute of saving children who were trapped in a cave - fixing prices to a meme number to impress his then-wife/”partner” Grimes, and generally acting in way that’s somewhat familiar and “relatable” to the contemporary popular culture. He is much more engaged with it than the typical person of his status and affluence is. I concede that he is more in touch with what the drooling unwashed masses are concerned about than his decadent Jupiterian counterparts who mostly sit on their gilded thrones and plot behind closed doors.

Despite my qualms about him personally, it’s hard to argue in an intellectually honest fashion that Elon Musk buying Twitter would not be a benefit for the site’s users – and him, of course – in the long run. There are certain categories of idiots who only see one side of it, as a power hungry move where Elon Musk and somehow making their site worse after it has already been driven off a cliff by those hungry for power and control. To them, calling someone a slur or discontent users trying to hold malicious individuals who are on “their side” accountable is grave sin. Online “harassment” to them is all forms of rudeness, whether it is rooted in truth or not. They are blind to powerful, far-reaching interests on their own end, or choose to back them up as paragons of progress and justice despite such movements often entirely lacking in organicism and being not more than a mammonic push for control.

It will be interesting to see what former CEO Jack Dorsey has to say, as he has recently been expressing his discontent after leaving the site. While in hindsight, it is easy, and true, to say he has been a scapegoat for some of the ridiculous actions of the site, he is also partially responsible for it going in this direction in the first place. In a company with many influential shareholders and board members, it should be apparent that there is and has been some level of conflict about the direction of the company.

As for Musk, he is more or less an ideologically tolerant social centrist, someone who would been seen as having relatively normal ideas about the online sphere 10 or so years ago. He’s fairly open relative to most tech overlords, though as I have said before, the label of “extreme” or “extremist” does not intrinsically make something true or false. It is also ambiguous where this line is drawn for what counts as “most extreme” and not, as if there is a clear and linear distinction.

The notion of “free speech” on the internet was nearly non-existent before the rise of social media. Saying Twitter or any social media site was founded on “free speech”, as often some centre-right conservative or libertarian-minded people think, is not true; it simply was not conceptualized then.

It’s not that there was no censorship or suppression of ideas at all: the difference is that there was not a widespread standardized attitude or policy, against “hate” or social/political dissent. Additionally, they had relatively unsophisticated tools and thus could not enforce it even if they wanted to, which have been developed by now, nor the will to enforce this. Someone posting fringe opinions or making provocative/controversial statements was not automatically seen as a threat to safety or have their reputation immediately ran through the mud. It is insane to see how much things have changed from 10 years ago. Part of this is due to the explosion of userbase size, where on larger sites especially, the vast majority of moderation is automated. However, even smaller sites have been warped by power-tripping ideologues.

So, who should buy Twitter, or another question to ask is, what should be done about Twitter? I know of many people who I associate with, who would take it in a much better direction than now. However, they lack the finances, will, ability or combination of all of these to do so. Poa.st, for instance was founded by someone I have had association with, on the Fediverse – based off of Mastodon, which Truth Social also happens to be based off of as well - which is a decentralized social media sphere with their own “local” enforcement options. That comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. It incurs costs in time and money to maintain these servers yourself, and not everyone can afford the luxury of having a whole team working on a website to make it functional, as well as likely being in the red from running a site independently.

If you are reading this, it’s almost certainly out of your hands what happens with Twitter. Its current shareholders are discontent with this idea, and some of them are much more nefarious than Musk could ever be. The reality is that for the time being, nobody else on the outside seems to be either willing or able to contest this conflict between separate interests, even as media run their own pieces to push for certain outcomes, most often unfavourable towards Musk. Elon Musk buying it would be like patching the holes in an aging, rusted boat full of vermin. It would mitigate the worst of the problems, but only completely repurposing and refurbishing it could ever possibly make it exemplary.