The public is guessing what Elon Musk will do with Twitter when he acquires control, assuming his $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform is finalized. One thing seems clear: the standard profit motive is scarcely relevant. Private acquisition tends to involve extra motives, especially for socially significant businesses such as the news media or social media. Musk seems to be buying Twitter in no small part to set the rules—and specifically to reset the standards of free speech established in social media and public discourse in recent years.
The question troubling some of the public seems to be whether Musk will restore former president Donald Trump’s account. That is a trap that will be hard to avoid. But beyond the issue of Trump, Musk’s assumed motives behind buying Twitter seem obvious. As ex-Reddit’s CEO Yishan Wong recently speculated, Musk may indeed long for the days of the early Internet. Twenty years ago, Internet mavens wanted merely to change the old world, the blogosphere was a frontier where people could freely express themselves, and censorship by large corporations controlling the means of discussion was unheard of. Today, social media have become a cultural battleground where speech is circumscribed, often by authorities—especially speech that these authorities reject—but also by many users, who seek to silence or suppress speech of those they deem unworthy of it. Judging by his first statements, Musk is determined to do something about that. Yet new features regarding bots or algorithms may not address the core problem with Twitter and with social media in general. The only way to fix Twitter may be to turn its basic design upside-down.
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