April 26, 2022
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made his plans for the social media platform Twitter very clear.
For Elon Musk, Twitter must become a genuine forum for free speech. He described free speech as “the bedrock of a functioning society,” and as a free speech absolutist, Elon Musk will do his best to guarantee freedom of expression for platform users, even if it means cracking down on some of the moderation measures on Twitter.
In addition to free speech, Elon Musk also hopes to crack down on spam bots, a computer program that has helped spread spam on the Internet. Spam bots often scrape together contact information, create fake user accounts, or operate stolen social media accounts.
Among several other steps the billionaire will take, he will make public Twitter’s algorithm for prioritizing tweets. There will likely be less moderation on the platform and the reinstatement of banned people like former President Donald Trump.
There are a number of other developments that Musk will bring to the table. For him, it is high time for Twitter to commit to what it should be.
“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. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithm 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,” Musk said.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.
