Elon Bought Twitter!
Now What?
Consider this my obligatory “Elon Musk bought Twitter” post. If you’re into the Digital Rights beat, you kinda can’t not mention it. It’d be like having a Sports blog and not mentioning the Super Bowl - maybe you’d rather talk about nearly anything else, if you’re anything like me, you’d much rather just watch a hockey game, but it’s the Super Bowl, you’re a sports blog, ya gotta mention it. Better analogy: It’d be like ignoring the giant turd in the punch bowl.
Is this the end of Twitter? Beats me. I suppose it’s possible. MySpace went downhill after Tom sold it to a bunch of random investors, same thing could happen here. Still, I’m not one of these “I’m getting off the platform” people. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. If you want to get off Twitter, do so. But, social media is an annoying but necessary tool in our contemporary world and if I limited my social media presence to platforms that weren’t owned by douche-tastic rich people the only social media platform I’d be on would be…umm…uh…I guess I’ll have to get back to you. There is none, folks. At least not right now and not with a significant presence. What are ya gonna do? Run from Elon Musk into the arms of the warm, socially responsible Mark Zuckerberg?
That being said, there are plenty of reasons for concern. He’s toying with the idea of charging a monthly fee to keep the coveted blue check. While it’s tempting, especially as someone who has been denied the coveted check multiple times, to just say “screw it” and allow the blue check system to be done away with entirely, it would open the door to more impersonation and smears, and would greatly diminish anyone’s ability to rely on Twitter for reporting. Sure, the blue check thing is annoying and in some ways classist, but it’s also a verification system that allows us to know that a statement did in fact come from the source it’s claiming to be. Doing away with it or resorting it to a paid model would definitely change Twitter for the worse, and tons of users would likely bail.
One thing I feel pretty certain about: Musk is gonna have buyer’s remorse if he doesn’t already. This column sums up why perfectly. Basically, Elon’s got his crew of edgelord contrarian fanboys who range from incel to white supremacist. They hear the word “free speech” as a dog whistle for “oh boy, I get to say the N-word a bunch!” But, now Elon’s got a platform on his hands where he has to keep shareholders and advertisers happy. What makes them happy? Users. And, to put it quite simply, many, many users don’t want to be on a platform that’s just a wasteland of hate, half-baked political ideologies and conspiracies, they’d much rather TikTok the day away. Twitter already deals with such a thing, while it’s used by millions of people, Twitter is small in comparison to other platforms because it’s more of a place for news and politics and some folks don’t want that. We could go back and forth all day about whether that’s good or bad, it’s just objectively true. You get a bunch of Q-Clowns and everything in between slithering out of the woodwork thinking Twitter’s the new Truth Social or whatever that Trump thing is, now, more folks are gonna bail. So, Musk has to be the bad cop, at least in the eyes of his fanboys, and they ain’t gonna like that. It will, to some extent, be humorous when the Musk sycophants turn on him. Your billionaire exploiter wasn’t the outsider you thought he was? Aw, too bad. Thoughts & prayers. Just to be clear, when I say these things I’m not advocating over-reaching censorship: I think these platforms should be public utilities that abide by US Free Speech laws - I’ve been saying this for years and I’ll probably have to say it forever since nothing will change - I’m just telling it as it is.
There is one small bright spot too, if ya can believe it. Old Elon, at least according to him, thinks that all of our DMs should have encrypted protection.
I agree! Good call Elon, and it’s your platform now! Let’s make it happen! Fortunately, there’s even a call to action for all social media to give our DMs protection.
At the end of the day, it should bother everyone that a random billionaire can buy a communication platform used by millions of people. We’re in an odd space where technology has passed up the law. How do we fix this? That’s a long, long question for another column. But, a little Antitrust is a good start.