5 ways Elon Musk could change Twitter

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Bay News 9 By Ryan Chatelain 4/25/2022

Elon Musk is adding Twitter to a titanic business portfolio that also includes Tesla and SpaceX.
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What You Need To Know

•   Elon Musk is adding Twitter to a titanic business portfolio that also includes Tesla and SpaceX

•   So what will a Musk takeover mean for the future of Twitter?

•   One of Musk’s main gripes about Twitter is content moderation policies, which he believes are too stringent

•   Musk also plans to transform Twitter from a publicly traded company into a private one and create transparency by converting it to an open-source model

Twitter announced Monday that it has reached an agreement for Musk — the richest man in the world, according to Forbes — to acquire the company for about $44 billion.

"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," Musk said in a statement announcing the deal. "I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it."

So what will a Musk takeover mean for the future of Twitter?

Here are some ways the platform could change:

Less censorship

One of Musk’s main gripes about Twitter is its content moderation policies, which he believes are too stringent.

In a regulatory finding in which he announced his bid to buy Twitter, Musk wrote: “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.”

He added he didn't trust Twitter’s leadership to make the chances he thinks are necessary to ensure free speech on the platform.

He’s not alone in complaining about Twitter’s policies. Republicans have long complained that social media companies, namely Twitter and Facebook, censor conservative viewpoints.

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A private company

As part of the agreement, Musk will transform Twitter from a publicly traded company into a private one.

He said in a letter to Twitter that going private was needed for the company “to go through the changes that need to be made.” He’s also complained that, following Dorsey’s departure, Twitter’s board members own few shares among them and therefore “are simply not aligned with shareholders.”

Musk, however, said he wants to keep as many shareholders in a privatized Twitter as he legally can.
Open-source algorithm

Musk said at a TED conference earlier this month that he wants to convert Twitter to an open-source model. That, he said, would create transparency into the company, allowing users to examine its code and see why certain posts are prioritized in users’ feeds.

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Crackdown on bots and scams

Musk also indicated recently he would try to root out bots and crypto “scams” on Twitter.

“If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!” he tweeted last week.

In January, Musk complained that Twitter was developing profile pictures that showcase non-fungible tokens “while crypto scammers are throwing a spambot block party in every thread!?”

When a Twitter user responding to one of Musk’s tweets showing a graph chart of the platform’s annual growth, Musk responded: “Now subtract crypto scam accounts that twitter constantly shows as ‘real’ people in everyone’s feed.”

An edit button

Earlier this month, Musk asked his followers if Twitter should add an edit button, jokingly listing the options as “yse” and “on.” Seventy-four percent supported the idea.

Musk, however, wouldn’t solely be able to take credit for such a move.

Twitter said April 1 it was working on an edit button, which many users believed was an April Fool’s joke. After Musk’s poll, the company confirmed it will begin to test the button in the coming months, adding, “no, we didn’t get the idea from a poll.”

More: https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/technology/2022/04/25/5-ways-elon-musk-might-change-twitter