INDIANAPOLIS — This week, Twitter was trending on its own platform after the world’s richest man acquired the social media site for $44 billion.
The deal would make the company private, but experts say that’s not the only change expected to happen.
“Even though he has taken the company private and doesn’t have to worry about stockholders anymore, he still has to worry about advertisers who don’t want to necessarily be associated with offensive content,” said Anthony Fargo, the director of the Center of International Law and Policy Studies at the Media School at Indiana University.
“It depends really on the integrity of the owner and at this point I don’t think we really know what we are going to get from Elon Musk,” Fargo added.
In the past, Musk has been one of the site’s biggest critics, vowing to redefine free speech online.
“Well, I think it is very important for there to be an inclusive arena for free speech,” Musk said during a TED Talk this year.
On Monday, Musk took to Twitter to celebrate his new deal with rocket emojis saying, “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square.”
In the same tweet, he also mentions “making algorithms open source to increase trust” and “defeating the spam bots.”
He previously talked about charging users a small fee and adding an “edit” button to tweets.
“If Elon Musk is serious about opening up Twitter and making it more like ‘anything goes,’ then coming with that will be more misinformation, hate speech and other types of offensive content,” Fargo said.
On Tuesday, Musk clarified what he meant by free speech, saying in a tweet, “I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.”
A White House official also shared concerns about the potential surge of misinformation after the deal was announced, adding President Joe Biden is working with Congress to address more accountability and transparency.
“No matter who owns or runs Twitter, the president has long been concerned about the power of large social media platforms,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
Currently, Musk still runs Tesla and SpaceX along with several other companies, but this latest purchase will be a whole new frontier for the billionaire businessman.
“I think Musk ultimately could be taking on more than he believes, but it's Musk, and we all know he's going to go to the beat of a different drum,” said Dan Ives, managing director of equity research with Wedbush Securities.
This deal could still take some time before being finalized. The purchase still needs to clear global regulation hurdles and be voted on by shareholders. The goal is to have that done by the end of the year.
What other people are reading: