In the past few weeks, there has been plenty of back and forth between the world’s richest man, Elon Musk and social media platform Twitter.
He had previously acquired a 9.2% stake in the company making him Twitter’s largest individual shareholder at the time.
He was then offered a seat on the company’s board of directors but the deal soon fell apart, as a seat on the board would prevent him from buying more than a 14.9% in the company.
However, it has been recently reported that Twitter’s board of directors accepted Musk’s offer of $44 billion (RM191 billion), for total control of the company which will make it a private company.
To promote freedom of speech?
Musk has stated several times that he isn’t interested in buying Twitter to make money as he views Twitter as the “de facto town square” and wants to open source the social media company’s algorithm to protect freedom of expression.
??♥️ Yesss!!! ♥️?? pic.twitter.com/0T9HzUHuh6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022
In a statement on Twitter, Musk said, “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 algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.”
The news was met by positivity by some users who praised Musk for his efforts in promoting freedom of speech.
“Finally. Freedom of expression is back on the biggest speech platform.”
“About time someone took control… the past couple of years we were starting to lose freedom of speech,” commented a user.
Another user congratulated Musk on the Twitter takeover. “Hope Twitter works for a peaceful and prosperous world,” they added.
Users are not convinced
On the other hand, the announcement has led to the hashtag #GoodbyeTwitter to become trending as plenty of users signaled their intent to leave the app as a sign of protest.
Users believe that the takeover will result in the spreading of even more hate speech as well as misinformation as there will be less moderation. It could also mean the reinstatement of banned individuals such as former President Donald Trump.
Twitter has been credited with helping spawn the Arab Spring uprising and accused of playing a role in riots and protests especially in the US.
Meanwhile, some users think that his takeover of Twitter is a misplaced priority as the world has more pressing issues at hand such as world hunger, unemployment and climate change.
“The US$44 billion would’ve gone a long way if used in solving some of these global challenges. You are misusing your wealth,” added the user.
What do you think of the takeover? Will it bring more positives than negatives? Let us know in the comments.
