What can Elon Musk do after acquiring Twitter?

“Twitter has huge potential, I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it,” Musk said when announcing the $44 billion deal with Twitter on April 25.

The question is what Musk will do after owning Twitter, especially when he used to come up with a lot of ideas with social networks.

Speak loosely on content regulations

The Tesla boss once described himself as “an absolute supporter of free speech” and has repeatedly criticized regulations that control content on online platforms. He expressed his belief right in the announcement of the deal with Twitter. “Freedom of speech is the foundation of democracy and Twitter is a digital square where issues important to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said.

He also said that social networks should not delete controversial content, as long as they do not violate the law. “If it’s a gray zone, let that tweet live,” Musk said in a recent interview.

Twitter currently prohibits harassment, abuse, and posts that threaten to assault or cause bodily harm to others. The platform also has many regulations on posting, which prohibit the sharing of fake news related to Covid-19.

Experts expressed concern about Musk’s effort, saying that it could pave the way for bad guys to abuse the platform to harass others, as well as promote people to spread fake news about political events. or disease.

Create tweet edit button

One of the most requested changes by Twitter users is the ability to edit tweets. Unlike Facebook and many other social networks, users cannot edit tweets after they have been posted.

Musk supports the option to allow users to change the content of tweets. However, many people fear that this will be used by bad guys to hide wrongdoing, as well as defraud ordinary users. Some experts suggest a safety plan such as allowing only spelling corrections and displaying the post content history to show the original content.

Publicize Twitter’s Algorithm

Musk thinks it’s important to be public about how the software decides how to display what users see on Twitter. He supports the option of hosting the Twitter algorithm on GitHub, a popular site among programmers, where they can share software source code with each other.

Supporters say this is a transparent and open step in social networking companies, while opponents fear that revealing Twitter’s complex algorithm to the public will not bring much results.

Social networks like Twitter process billions of content every day. The way tweets attract attention, as well as the way the Twitter recommendation system works, is so complex and dense that it is difficult for software engineers to understand the logic of its operation.

Declare war on ‘legions of bots’

Dealing with the prevalence of bots and fake accounts is also one of the changes that Musk is interested in.

His business has attracted a large number of bots, including accounts dedicated to defending Tesla and attacking opponents. Musk did not mention how to deal with this type of bot, but alluded to the need to tighten and tackle bots specializing in scams and related to cryptocurrency.

Remove the ad book

Nearly 90% of Twitter’s current revenue comes from advertising, but the social network is struggling to attract advertisers amid frequent discussions that lead to political controversy or online swearing.

By becoming Musk’s own company, Twitter may no longer be under the constant pressure to increase profits from shareholder-imposed advertising. Musk once suggested that the company should switch to a paid-for-use model.

The platform has taken several steps through the launch of Twitter Blue, a premium service for $2.99/month that adds a lot of its own features. The US billionaire thinks that Twitter Blue should have a cheaper subscription price, about 2 USD, and do not display ads, as well as accept payments in Dogecoin.

Allow former US president Donald Trump to return

Musk never mentioned allowing Donald Trump’s account to return to the platform after he was permanently banned by Twitter because of the Capitol Hill riots in early 2021.

In the interview with Fox News On April 25, Trump called Musk a “good guy” and was pleased with the deal, but insisted there were no plans to find a way back to Twitter and would focus on his own social network called Truth Social.

At a companywide meeting that same day, a Twitter employee asked CEO Parag Agrawal if Trump would reappear on the platform. “That’s the question for Musk. When the deal is complete, we don’t know which direction the company will go,” CEO Agrawal said.

Diep Anh (according to NPR)