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As reported by this digital newspaper, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, is set to become the new owner of Twitter and the purchase of 100% of the company’s shares could be announced at any time.
The international press already considers that the negotiation was concluded successfully and that the agreement between the parties should involve an amount of around 45 billion dollars.
I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022
Amid great anticipation that the official announcement will be published, the billionaire took to social media on Monday afternoon (25) and confirmed his defense of freedom of expression on the platform.
“I hope even my worst critics will stay on Twitter, because that’s what free speech means,” wrote the Tesla and SpaceX owner.
But what Musk was essentially asking was whether the rules computers follow to define what you see in your Twitter feed should also be public. More than a million votes were counted when the poll closed, with an overwhelming amount of votes in favor (82.7%).
The implications of Musk’s suggestion and research gained new weight last week after the Tesla and SpaceX CEO announced that he had made an offer to buy all shares of Twitter . On the 15th, the Twitter board announced a measure called the “poison pill” , which could make it difficult for Musk to acquire the company, but this Monday (25), the social network and the billionaire reached an agreement and closed a business worth approximately US$44 billion .
🚀💫♥️ Yesss!!! ♥️💫🚀 pic.twitter.com/0T9HzUHuh6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022
Jessica Melugin, director of the Center for Technology and Innovation at the Competitive Enterprise Institute added that the deal will either solve all free speech problems or turn the social media platform into “an unusable hellscape” of objectionable content.
“Of course, nobody really knows what he’ll do and to what effect, but it is certain his efforts are preferable to the proposed government regulatory solutions,” explained Melugin. “Whatever changes Musk makes will be necessarily superior to government regulation because they’ll happen on only one platform among many from which users have to choose. If his new policies make Twitter better and its users happier, other platforms can emulate them. If Musk makes decisions that make things worse, at least the consequences are confined to Twitter. Government regulations for content moderation, on the other hand, subject far more social media users to negative outcomes because they cover all (or all of the biggest) platforms. Better to have numerous laboratories trying different solutions to today’s content moderation challenges than a one-size-fits-all government approach.”
Changes on Musk’s mind
A crucial issue is how Musk’s ownership of Twitter, and private control of social media platforms generally, affect the broader public wellbeing. In a series of deleted tweets, Musk made several suggestions about how to change Twitter, including adding an edit button for tweets and granting automatic verification marks to premium users.
There is no experimental evidence about how an edit button would change information transmission on Twitter. However, it’s possible to extrapolate from previous research that analysed deleted tweets.
There are numerous ways to retrieve deleted tweets, which allows researchers to study them. While some studies show significant personality differences between users who delete their tweets and those who don’t, these findings suggest that deleting tweets is a way for people to manage their online identities.
Analysing deleting behavior can also yield valuable clues about online credibility and disinformation. Similarly, if Twitter adds an edit button, analysing the patterns of editing behavior could provide insights into Twitter users’ motivations and how they present themselves.
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Studies of bot-generated activity on Twitter have concluded that nearly half of accounts tweeting about COVID-19 are likely bots. Given partisanship and political polarisation in online spaces, allowing users — whether they are automated bots or actual people — the option to edit their tweets could become another weapon in the disinformation arsenal used by bots and propagandists. Editing tweets could allow users to selectively distort what they said, or deny making inflammatory remarks, which could complicate efforts to trace misinformation.
Musk has also indicated his intention to combat twitter bots, or automated accounts that post rapidly and repeatedly in the guise of people. He has called for authenticating users as real human beings.
Given challenges such as doxxing and other malicious personal harms online, it’s important for user authentication methods to preserve privacy. This is particularly important for activists, dissidents and whistleblowers who face threats for their online activities. Mechanisms such as decentralised protocols can enable authentication without sacrificing anonymity.
Twitter’s content moderation and revenue model
To understand Musk’s motivations and what lies next for social media platforms such as Twitter, it’s important to consider the gargantuan — and opaque — online advertising ecosystem involving multiple technologies wielded by ad networks, social media companies and publishers. Advertising is the primary revenue source for Twitter.
Musk’s vision is to generate revenue for Twitter from subscriptions rather than advertising. Without having to worry about attracting and retaining advertisers, Twitter would have less pressure to focus on content moderation. This could make Twitter a sort of freewheeling opinion site for paying subscribers. In contrast, until now Twitter has been aggressive in using content moderation in its attempts to address disinformation.
Musk’s description of a platform free from content moderation issues is troubling in light of the algorithmic harms caused by social media platforms. Research has shown a host of these harms, such as algorithms that assign gender to users, potential inaccuracies and biases in algorithms used to glean information from these platforms, and the impact on those looking for health information online.
Testimony by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen and recent regulatory efforts such as the online safety bill unveiled in the U.K. show there is broad public concern about the role played by technology platforms in shaping popular discourse and public opinion. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter highlights a whole host of regulatory concerns.
Because of Musk’s other businesses, Twitter’s ability to influence public opinion in the sensitive industries of aviation and the automobile industry automatically creates a conflict of interest, not to mention affects the disclosure of material information necessary for shareholders. Musk has already been accused of delaying disclosure of his ownership stake in Twitter.
Twitter’s own algorithmic bias bounty challenge concluded that there needs to be a community-led approach to build better algorithms. A very creative exercise developed by the MIT Media Lab asks middle schoolers to re-imagine the YouTube platform with ethics in mind. Perhaps it’s time to ask Musk to do the same with Twitter.
‘More Power In Fewer Hands’: Experts On Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover
Musk’s very own portion tweets have caused a stir
USA: Elon Musk’s promise to allow everybody to express out loud anything they desire on Twitter after his takeover of the virtual entertainment monster could put the onus on clients to battle tormenting and deception on the stage, specialists say.
Subtleties of Musk’s arrangements for Twitter were thin after his arrangement to purchase the tech firm was declared Monday, yet the Tesla boss depicts himself as a free-discourse absolutist.
In any case, the privatization of Twitter with Musk, as its lord, has raised worries from experts and activists that the website will be eccentrically administered by the world’s most extravagant man, with additional concentrate and benefit than on advancing sound internet based discussions, which has been really important at the help.
For Syracuse University partner teacher of correspondences regulation Kyla Garrett-Wagner, Musk’s takeover of Twitter is anything but a free discourse privileges triumph.
“What we have done is put much more power into less hands,” she told AFP.
“To close Twitter down for seven days, he can do that.”
She noticed the US Constitution’s most memorable correction just bans state run administrations from choking what residents say – – passing on the extremely rich person business visionary the influence to conclude what can and can’t be posted on the private element of Twitter.
“This isn’t the city intersection,” Garrett-Wagner said. “This is the supposed Wild West yet possessed by a minority first class that doesn’t address minority voices.”
‘The savages dominate’
Musk’s guaranteed hands-off way to deal with content is an especially prickly matter with regards to high-profile cases like that of previous US President Donald Trump, who was restricted from Twitter after an attack on the Capitol by his allies.
“Musk says he will transform Twitter into an online entertainment stage with no control; there have been a few of those and they don’t work,” said examiner Rob Enderle of Enderle Group.
“The savages assume control over, they move excessively threatening and drive individuals away from the stage.”
Musk has said he is unwilling to forbidding individuals from Twitter because of misconduct, provoking hypothesis that he would lift Trump’s boycott.
However, Trump on Monday said he wouldn’t be getting back to Twitter regardless of whether his record were reestablished, saying he would adhere to his own site, Truth Social.
Application store inconvenience?
Assuming that Musk pulls back on policing content on Twitter, promoters would likewise need to start to lead the pack to guarantee their messages were not related with poisonous substance, as indicated by supporters and scholastics.
“It is likewise important that Google and Apple hold Twitter to similar principles they applied to other applications like Parler,” he added, alluding to an informal community well known among preservationists.
The tech goliaths would have to emphasize that “Twitter won’t seek extraordinary treatment and that an infringement of their terms of administration will bring about the stage being eliminated from the application stores,” as per Carusone.
Musk will likewise confront intense judgment in the court of general assessment, with Twitter clients able to get some distance from the stage assuming it becomes threatening and overflowed with deception, Garrett-Wagner said.
Musk’s very own portion tweets have caused a stir, as he once taunted a Tesla informant and in 2018 called a salvage laborer who scrutinized an arrangement to save kids from an overflowed cave in Thailand “a pedo fellow.”
While Musk has discussed freeing Twitter of programming “bots” that shoot spam, really affirming that clients are living individuals could demonstrate testing, Baird investigator Colin Sebastian told financial backers in a note.
Sebastian noticed that Musk’s concept of charging for desired blue marks of approval that confirm clients’ characters is a “easy decision,” yet it is reasonable just a little minority of individuals would pay for the status.
Musk has likewise said he accepts anybody ought to have the option to examine the product behind the assistance.
However, that sort of straightforwardness could accompany the potentially negative side-effect that it will simply be taken advantage of by “agitators” who track down ways of gaming the framework to advance their posts, experts have cautioned.
“The manner of speaking around straightforwardness is that it will prompt a revelation and individuals will change,” Garrett-Wagner said.
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“It’s a deceptive solace to figure all will be well assuming that we know about the way things are working.”
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Remember how the negotiation between Elon Musk and Twitter was
Credit: Brett Jordan/Unsplash
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On April 4, a regulatory document was released showing that Tesla owner Elon Musk had on March 14 acquired a 9.2% equity stake in Twitter.
Credit: SOPA Images/LightRocket via Gett
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The following day, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced that Musk would join the social network’s board of directors.
Credit: Disclosure/Twitter
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On April 11, Musk decided not to join the company’s board of directors.
Credit: 06/13/2019REUTERS/Mike Blake
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Instead, Musk decided to make an offer to buy Twitter on April 14th. According to a document sent to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the billionaire wanted to buy all the shares he didn’t have at $54.20 a share – which would take the company to $43.4 billion.
Credit: Data Ruvic/Reuters
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The following day, Twitter adopted the so-called “poison pill” (or poison pills), a mechanism for partners who are afraid of losing control of a company to make it difficult or even prevent a possible acquisition of shares.
credit: Reuters
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On April 21, the billionaire revealed how he would finance the purchase of Twitter: he would invest $33.5 billion, which would include $21 billion in stock and $12.5 billion in loans. Banks agreed to provide another $13 billion in secured debt
credit: Reuters
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On April 24, Twitter’s board of directors met to discuss Musk’s proposed takeover.
Crédito: 27/9/2013 REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration
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On April 25, Musk and Twitter reach an agreement: the billionaire bought the social network for $ 44 billion
Musk said his goal is to “unlock” Twitter’s “extraordinary potential,” but his suggestions for specific changes on how to do that are somewhat vague. One of Musk’s main focuses has been reinforcing freedom of expression on the platform, and his suggestion for algorithms is a central part of that effort.
Hours after Musk made his bid to buy Twitter, the billionaire repeated the idea of open-coding Twitter’s algorithms during his participation at the TED conference in Vancouver, Canada.
He also said that it should be clear to users when any actions are taken by Twitter that affect what you tweet — such as decisions to amplify or restrict tweets.
That way, he explained at the TED event, “there’s no manipulation behind the scenes, either algorithmically or manually.” Audience members responded with enthusiastic applause. Twitter puts labels on tweets for a variety of reasons, when a post contains misleading information or violates the social network’s rules, for example, but it becomes available after it’s been defined as “of public interest.”
Credit: REUTERS/Stephen Lam