A super app called X? Haven free of bots? These are some of Elon Musk’s mysterious plans for Twitter, after all he might buy the company.
After months of wrangling over the fate of a staggering $44 billion deal, the billionaire and Bird app are basically back to square one – if a little worse for wear as trust and goodwill seem to have eroded on both sides.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX and the most popular Twitter user since former President Donald Trump was fired, has shared some concrete details about his plans for the social media platform. While he’s been promoting free speech and mocking spam bots since agreeing to buy the company in April, what he actually wants to do about either of them is shrouded in mystery.
It could have one of the world’s most powerful communications platforms with 237 million daily users in a matter of weeks, although the deal isn’t final. The lack of clear plans for the platform raises concerns among Twitter circles, starting with users in conflict zones where it provides a lifeline of information for company employees.
“Both users and advertisers are understandably concerned about whether this move will fundamentally change the culture of the platform,” said Brock Erin Duffy, a professor at Cornell University who studies social media. “Thus, Musk will need to decide whether he wants to eliminate their concerns by keeping core features (the content editing system, for example) and keeping the company public — or whether to overhaul.”
To make matters worse, Musk tweeted on Tuesday that “buying Twitter is accelerating the creation of X, applying everything,” without further explaining.
Although Musk’s tweets and data were encrypted, tech analysts speculated that Musk would want to recreate a version of the Chinese WeChat app that can video chat, messaging, stream, scan barcodes and make payments.
He provided more details during Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in August, telling the audience at a factory near Austin, Texas, that he uses Twitter frequently and knows the product well. “I think I have a pretty good idea of where to direct the engineering team using Twitter to make it fundamentally better,” he said.
Processing merchandise payments can be an essential part of the application. Musk said he had a “greater vision” of what X.com could be, an online bank he started early in his career and eventually became part of PayPal.
“Obviously this can start from scratch, but I think Twitter will help accelerate that from three to five years,” Musk said at the August meeting. “So it’s something I’ve thought would be very useful for a long time. I know what to do.”
Right now, Twitter is facing immediate and pressing problems that Musk will need to deal with if he takes ownership of the company. Its social media rivals are struggling with falling stock prices, and some, like Snap, have even announced layoffs. Government regulation and attracting young users away from TikTok also present challenges. Musk’s vision of a haven for freedom of expression engages social media and content management experts, as well as human and digital rights advocates.
“When this all started in the spring, we had indications and a strong sense of what Musk could do with the platform,” said Angelo Carusone of Media Matters, a watchdog group that opposes the takeover. “Because of the lawsuit, we know who he was talking to, what he was saying and the kinds of extremist ideological decision-makers he wanted to hire. And frankly, the worst fears were confirmed.”
Twitter employees, under former CEO Jack Dorsey and his predecessors, have spent years working to tame the platform once called the “free speech wing of the Free Speech Party” where hate and harassment are rampant in something where everyone is welcome and safe. While it’s far from perfect, critics fear that Musk’s ownership will mean turning back the clock on years of this work.
“Musk has made it clear that he will backtrack on Twitter’s community standards and safety guidelines, bring back Donald Trump along with dozens of other accounts that have been suspended for violence and abuse, and open the door to misinformation,” Carusoni said.
The company, for example, was an early adopter of the “report abuse” button in 2013, after British MP Stella Creasy received a barrage of rape and murder threats on the platform, echoing the experiences of other women over the years.
In subsequent years, Twitter has continued to craft rules and invest in employees and technology to detect violent threats, harassment, and disinformation that violate its policies. After evidence emerged that Russia used its software to try to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election, social media companies have also stepped up their efforts against political disinformation.
The big question now is to what extent Musk, who describes himself as the “absolute of free speech,” wants to escalate these regulations — and whether users and advertisers will continue to operate if he does.
Aiming to allay such concerns, Musk said in May he wanted Twitter to be “as broadly inclusive as possible” where ideally most of America is talking and talking — a far cry from the far-right playing field that his critics have warned against.
And while Musk has hinted that he will consider reinstating Trump’s account, it is not clear that the former president, who has since launched his own social media platform, will return.
Then there’s the matter of Twitter employees, who have been living in limbo, high (and low) departures and a potential owner who publicly mocked them on their platform. Musk also targeted Twitter’s “work from home” policy, after once calling for the company’s headquarters to be converted into a “homeless shelter” because, he said, few employees actually work there.
As a frequent Twitter user with over 100 million followers, Musk knows how to use the platform. During an all-staff meeting Musk attended in June, he said his goal was to make him “too convincing you can’t live without.” If he’s able to realize that, he could finally put Twitter in the big leagues of social media, with TikTok, Meta Facebook and Instagram, where users are counted in the billions, not just millions.
Of course, Musk is also famous for predictions that are delayed or may not come true, such as colonizing Mars or deploying a fleet of autonomous robots.
said David Kirsch, a professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland who has studied the impact of Twitter bots on Tesla’s stock price. “You’re dealing here with all these other companies (which) also have very complex AI software, very sophisticated PhD programmers…Everyone is trying to crack that nut.”
–
Cresher reported from Detroit.
Copyright © 2022 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
.
[ad_2]
