Business & Management Studies

What does Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter point towards?

What does Musk's recent acquisition of Twitter point towards?
Image Source – Hannibal Hanschke / Associated Press

The bigger picture might not be just about Twitter, but about creating an everything app.

Author

Nikhil Naren, Assistant Professor, Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.

Summary

What is the Chief of Tesla and SpaceX up to with his latest acquisition, Twitter, the microblogging platform with an active userbase of 329 million and monetizable daily active userbase of 240 million? He appears to be overhauling it both on the inside and the outside.

Earlier ‘Chief Twit’ and now ‘Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator’ (yes, that’s what Musk’s Twitter description reads!) had previously shown concerns about lack of end-to-end encryption in the Twitter DMs and advocated for making Twitter an inclusive arena for free speech.

Musk had earlier remarked that Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square. Many argued that Twitter can’t be the public square because most of the public doesn’t even use it and is far smaller than any other social media platform.  Will his push for promoting free speech on the platform lead to loosening of the standards for content moderation? It has been evident that the ‘chief’ isn’t a fan of Twitter’s content moderation efforts and has continuously advocated for stronger protections of freedom of speech on social media platforms.

Hence, he may presumably move the company closer to his perspective as its new owner and likely remove some content moderation practices and be less likely to remove tweets that, to him, fall within a gray area.

Published in: The New Indian Express

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