AFAIK, his publicly-stated plan is to not "clean [Twitter] up," but rather turn it into more of an un-moderated cesspool.
I had an account I created in 2009. I had a modestly decent number of followers due to some past blogging on data science and DIY electronics. My account was suspended because I talked about the lab leak hypothesis before it was decided that it was ok to do so by The Good People™.
Maybe you hold some opinions that will also one day be unpopular with The Good People™. If you do, you'll soon find out that censorship is a very clumsy tool.
Eh, no. It's more about signal to noise ratio. Because if recent history has taught us anything, it's that crowdsourced lies are often at least as compelling as the truth.
> My account was suspended because I talked about the lab leak hypothesis before it was decided that it was ok to do so by The Good People™.
Realistically, "un-moderated" will be 99% Qanon and Stop-the-Steal and 1% the kind of stuff you say you posted. The most obsessive have the loudest voices in those spaces, and people who believe wacky things seem to be more obsessive than those who don't.
You've got to think, if someone has the exact set of approved opinions today, that's almost certainly not a coincidence, but a sign that they form their opinions based on what is approved. And in that case they're at no risk of ever having a meaningfully unpopular opinion.
Now it's officially a credible theory[1].
This is exactly why moderating "The Truth" is so dangerous. The people claiming to be the arbiter of the truth are politically motivated and self serving.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/16/politics/biden-intel-review-c...
I'm sure he thinks that. Apparently he's a "free speech absolutist."
> Twitter not being a cesspool is an appealing fantasy, but only that.
It's not a binary condition. Twitter can be a cesspool with relatively more or relatively less shit. I'm sure his preference will result in relatively more shit.
Personally, I've appreciated a having society that lacks the shit Donald Trump created on Twitter.
If that's the goal, why not simply found another social media company built around those values?
Surely he has the means to attract tech talent to do it, the means/message to attract users to a new platform, and presumably if he knows what's bad about Twitter and how to subtract it and make it good, he could do this greenfield.
This would result in increased platform diversity, too. And I'll bet you it's cheaper.
Imagine if Musk had tried to buy a big three automaker in order to make electric cars happen.
People have tried to do what you said. Let's make a Twitter that's not controlled by the hard left! The result was Twitter's ideological allies at tech firms immediately banned them from every platform they controlled, and other allies ganged up to hack and destroy them.
You cannot start a Twitter competitor today, it's impossible, because:
1. The sort of people who found companies tend to be pro-free speech because their economic survival depends on having risky but correct ideas, and that naturally leads to a sympathy for free speech.
2. The sort of people who hate free speech are obsessed with Twitter/tweeting platforms specifically.
3. They are exceptionally aggressive. They will do anything, including damaging their own companies and even breaking the law in order to stop any other platform from becoming popular. They've managed to take over tech firms to a sufficient extent that they will destroy any attempts to replace Twitter, which they see as a key pivot point in their power over society.
The obvious solution: buy Twitter and fix it. It's too big to ban. This also has the major benefit of really, really upsetting Musk's ideological enemies. They'd hate him anyway and many are in powerful positions in politics and the media. Even the thought of losing Twitter to Musk has very conspicuously driven them into a frenzy in recent days, and such frenzies discredit them in the eyes of the general public, thus weakening their ability to move against Musk.
Twitter is one of the few social networks that actually has a network. A lot of social media failed because the cold start problem is a very hard problem to solve at this point in the game. Elon probably knows it and I would bet that this is why he is looking to buy an established social network rather than creating a new one.
Musk has market-moving clout and a cult of personality, so the remaining question would be if he has a compelling insight into distinguished features.
If he doesn't, he won't make Twitter better. If he does, he could make a greenfield platform a success.
Bad analogy. Social media platforms are natural monopolies. The utility of a car doesn't grow with how many other people own that model. By contrast, Twitter's utility is basically just a function of the fact that all the relevant players use it.
If this was the case, Facebook wouldn't have needed to buy Instagram and Whatsapp. Or hell, there wouldn't have been FB because MySpace would have been king forever.
Network effects are real and they can help sustain engagement and mindshare but given how easy it is to move fluidly between multiple forums (social or no), the next competing platform is one compelling reason for engagement away.
> ...Social media is a cesspool right now,...
He would have greater impact if he used his account to not add to the cesspool, then. Much more than if he bought the company and kept tweeting like he does.
Why should he?
Like what?
And haven't we already established that no amount of money thrown around is going to actually fix "hunger around the world" or "health care around the world". How many billions have already been dumped down that hole to little effect?
And idk why your so cynical about results. Just one example is Bill gates helping with polio vaccines.
Anyway I thought you were asking for better ways to actually help the world then buying Twitter. Plenty of research needs funding.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7049a1.htm
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/polio-outbreak-s...
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/polio-cases-now-caus...
He could also do much worse.
Then don't you think people shouldn't have so much money that they can literally control society? What a facile stance.
Edit: parent comment cleanly and completely changed due to my response, what a world. Cowards.
I think the online giant platforms are another problematic avenue of control, I don't object to that characterization, but I'm really saying that saying "other's money is none of your business" can't be a good-faith statement in a world where money can control livelihoods and laws with such ease.
It absolutely can. I have no problem with the fact that money can buy politicians.
I have a problem with the fact that politicians can be bought in the first place.
Which are 2 completely different issues. If you had loads of money, you’d play the game too.
Well, you can, but it’d be massively hypocritical and an opinion that’s easily dismissed
If anything, we should not only be scrutinizing the hell out of Musk’s stated intentions, but also scrutinizing those people in the Twitter organization who have the power to manipulate the public message, and ensuring that there are checks in place to keep falsehoods and anti-democracy messaging out of social media.
I mean, really, “mind your business!”? So let’s pretend it’s some other mega-billionaire, shall we? We sure has hell don’t want the likes of Putin purchasing twitter, do we? Give your head a shake.
Edit: ah, shit, I see later in the thread you double down. What a waste of my time. Don’t bother responding, IDGAF.
Why not both?
Couldn't he have more noble causes in mind like trying to do the right thing for humanity (e.g. Tesla, SpaceX)? Social media is a cesspool right now, they seem to have a negative impact on democracy and humanity in general, and public social media companies have no incentive to clean themselves up because that will hurt shareholder value in the short term. Buying the company and taking it private will give him the ability to make those hard choices and try to make a social media company that is positive for humanity.