Elon Musk stated this morning that he has made a $43 billion deal to buy Twitter. He recently purchased 9.2% of the company for $3 billion and then denied a board position.
Conveniently, the polarizing CEO of Tesla and SpaceX was already set to talk at the TED2022 conference, a discussion that was so popular that TED made the livestream available to the whole public.
TED’s Chris Anderson asked Musk why he made an offer to buy Twitter in the opening question of the session.
“I believe it is critical to have a welcoming environment for free speech.” After jokingly attempting to avoid the topic by talking about the movie “Ted,” which stars a talking bear, he replied, “It’s absolutely vital that people have both the reality and the idea that they are able to speak freely within the confines of the law.”
Musk describes himself as a “free speech absolutist,” according to Anderson. Musk knows that Twitter must follow US rules (it’s unlawful to cry “fire!” in a movie theatre if there isn’t one), but he believes that “if someone you don’t like is permitted to say something you don’t like… if that is the case, then we have free expression.”
Of course, it is not against the rules to disagree with someone on Twitter, but the rules do prohibit things like hate speech, targeted harassment and COVID-19 falsehoods, so it’s unclear what type of modifications Musk would actually want to make to the platform’s rules.
He stated that he wants Twitter to follow the rules of the country in which it operates, which is similar to the approach taken by platforms such as Parler and Truth Social. He went on to say that he thinks it’s fine to put people “on probation,” but that permanent bans are ineffective.
Musk went on to say that he wants Twitter’s code, including its algorithm, to be open source. Several US lawmakers have advocated for more transparency regarding social media algorithms, particularly in light of former Facebook employee Frances Haugen’s document disclosures, which demonstrate that Facebook prefers content that is more likely to elicit outrage.
Musk also wants to make the platform less spammy.
“The first priority for me would be to get rid of the spam and fraud bots, as well as the bot armies on Twitter,” he stated. “They’re degrading the product significantly.” If I had a dogecoin for every cryptocurrency scam.”
Musk said he was “obsessed with truth” as a child and studied physics in order to “understand the truth of the cosmos.” In some ways, it appears that Musk approaches his business ventures through this lens: SpaceX wants to explore the unknown, Tesla wants to promote more sustainable transportation, and Twitter… is a platform where he wants to say, “Do whatever you want as long as it’s not illegal?” Something doesn’t seem quite right.
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