4 ways Twitter could change under Elon Musk

Elon Musk can be inscrutable at times, and his politics are elusive, which has made it somewhat difficult to determine exactly what the billionaire would make of the successful Twitter acquisition. But in recent weeks and months, Musk has given further hints about what he would change about Twitter, in interviews, regulatory filings and, of course, on his personal Twitter account.

Here are the main areas Musk could try to address:

Content moderators and freedom of expression

Musk has frequently expressed concern that Twitter’s content moderators are going too far and intervening too much on the platform, which he sees as the Internet’s “de facto town square.”

In the regulatory filing announcing his offer to buy Twitter, he wrote: “I invested in Twitter because I believe in its potential to be the platform for freedom of expression around the world, and I believe that freedom of expression is a social imperative. for a functioning democracy.

He added that he did not trust the company’s current leadership to make the changes he felt were necessary and to prioritize his ideas over freedom of expression on the platform. “Since making my investment, I now realize that the company will not prosper or meet this social imperative in its current form,” he wrote.

In a tweet Monday, Musk said he hoped even his “worst critics” would continue to use the platform “because that’s what free speech means.”

Trump’s question

Musk has not publicly commented on how he would handle former President Donald Trump’s banned Twitter account. But his comments on free speech have fueled speculation that Twitter, under his ownership, could reinstate Trump, who was banned from the platform last year. After the January 6, 2021, riots on Capitol Hill, Twitter said that Trump had violated his policies by inciting violence among his supporters. Facebook also banned Trump for the same reason.

The former president, known for tweets criticizing opponents and at times announcing policy changes, is also trying to launch his own social networking site. His startup, Truth Social, has had trouble attracting users, and the problem could get worse now that Musk has suggested changing Twitter’s content moderation rules. Trump said in a recent interview that he probably wouldn’t join Twitter again if he could.

The Algorithm

At a TED talk this month, Musk explained his plans to make the company’s algorithm an open-source model, which would allow users to see code that shows how certain posts came up on their timelines.

He said the open source method would be better than “having tweets mysteriously getting promoted and demoted with no idea what’s going on.”

Musk has also pointed to the politicization of the platform before, recently tweeting that the policies of any social media platform “are good if the most extremist 10 percent on the left and right are equally unhappy.”

Who uses the platform and how

Before Musk offered to buy Twitter, he expressed concern about the platform’s relevance.

When one account posted a list of the 10 most followed Twitter accounts, including former President Barack Obama and pop stars Justin Bieber and Katy Perry, Musk responded, writing, “Most of these ‘top’ accounts tweet rarely and post very rarely. little content. Is Twitter dying?

Most recently, the CEO of Tesla promised in a tweet on Thursday that he would “beat the spam bots or die trying.”