Elon Musk buys and frees Twitter: what will change…

It’s the soap opera of the moment. The thing that makes you talk. After buying a large package of Twitter shares to be the main shareholder, Elon Musk had been snubbed by the board of directors in mode “ well you’re here now, but don’t make waves eh“. The billionaire therefore put the knife to the throats of the leaders: “ either you, I buy back the shares that I lack to have full powers (and you are rich), or I sell what I have and the share breaks the mouth (and you become poor)“.

Capitalism 101.

Rocket-man therefore took out the money. $54.20 per share multiplied by “the full sir” = $44 billion.

Elon Musk has finally set the blue bird free: pic.twitter.com/LXjzYCS2ZU

— Mikey (@MikeDulaimi) April 25, 2022

On Twitter, it’s effervescence with, as often, two opposing camps. The “pro-Elon” welcome this takeover and the promise of an uncensored social network headed by a user who finally understands them. On the other, the “anti-Elon” who worry about the end of pseudonymization or the transformation of Twitter into a kind of Gettr without moderation. There is even talk of the return of the devil himself: Donald Trump!

Edit: Well finally, he sulks Orange-man.

But then, what will change on Twitter with Elon Musk?

Well, you can imagine that if Elon Musk takes out the checkbook to buy Twitter, it’s not a whim. Even if the character divides, let’s agree on one thing: the guy doesn’t do anything without a reason. But then what will change on Twitter with Elon Musk?

-Freedom of speech

On Twitter, you have to be very careful what you say when you’re a little too right-wing, not really right-wing or when you work for a medium that these gentlemen moderators don’t like. We recently saw how the personal accounts of RT France journalists were treated. No matter how much we disagree with Moscow’s policy, censorship is never the right solution. Elon Musk wants Twitter develop their full potential » and it is not by suspending accounts for crimes of opinion that this will happen. We still remember that the blue bird closed the door to a president of the United States in office.

And when censorship is not so easy to assume, Twitter practices the “shadow ban”. You are banned, but not notified. Twitter’s algorithm will simply make sure to hide your tweets, make your profile less visible to quietly eliminate you like you would slowly suffocate a grandma with a pillow. This is particularly the case of Florian Phillipot. Another divisive person. We have the right to like it or not to like it, but why the social network acts in this way if what the politician defends is so ridiculous? We should be able to say Ha this Phillipot, what a clown without a machine infantilizing us. Musk wants his biggest critics to be able to express themselves freely on the network and that does not please everyone…

Not a judgement, but an observation:

20 years ago what would have terrified was to see a billionaire promise to censor a tool used by millions of Internet users. Today what frightens is to see a billionaire promise to promote freedom of expression.

— Guillaume Champeau (@gchampeau) April 26, 2022

-An open source algorithm, but what about moderation?

And it is precisely for this reason that Sud-Af’ wants to make the Tweeter algorithm open source. To make sure that X or Y is not censored for fancy reasons. Of course, this will not prevent human action on this or that account. Critics of Elon Musk fear the network will become a doomsday without moderators. To us, that’s ridiculous. Because even if the first amendment of the United States is very lax in terms of freedom of expression, there is exceptions. You just have to comply. Dura lex, sed lex. At European level, Twitter will have to comply with the Digital Services Act, a law which should oblige it to fight against “hate” online and “disinformation”… The billionaire says he wants to comply with the laws and not go beyond of the.

By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law.

I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.

If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.

Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 26, 2022

-Exit from the stock market

Elon Musk wants to transform the company and take it out of the stock exchange where it is listed on Wall Street (at the NYSE, New York Stock Exchange). The goal is to get out of the pressure by being less cornered by holders or a board of directors that has its eye on the share price.

-Technical changes

He’s said it over and over and he probably will, Elon Musk wants to be able to edit a tweet after it’s been sent. Currently, you have to erase your message and rewrite it properly if you made a mistake or if the spell checker was overzealous. It may be a detail for you, but for [lui] it means a lot. There remains the problem of embezzlement. If a user tweets “ Peace in Ukraine! and he accumulates 5245 “fav” and 998 RT, he could change the message to ” Let’s kill the baby cats while maintaining its popularity. The solution ? An “Edit” button that would only be active for 5 minutes… The guy lands rockets vertically, so we count on him to find a solution. Note that he also wants to rethink the certification system, this little blue dot that certifies that the person in question is the account holder. Moreover, he also intends to fight against fake accounts (LREM in PLS) and spam bots.

-Develop better paid services

Yes, you don’t become a billionaire like that and Elon Musk is a businessman. For him, Twitter has to make money and that’s not really the case right now. We don’t really know how the Tony Stark of our Earth-1218 will go about it, but he’s thinking of a more expensive and feature-rich Premium subscription than “Twitter Blue”. We will have to rack our brains, because currently Twitter is very dependent on advertising and friend Musk finds that there are too many…