Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter spurs cancellations and sign ups
Posted April 27, 2022
By Mila Romero
Cub Reporter
Billionaire Elon Musk's $44 billion Twitter purchase, and his plan to change policies, has resulted in big-name cancellations, including Katy Perry and former President Barack Obama, and big-name additions, including Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, now owns the well known and highly used social media app. Jack Dorsey, Titter's past owner, will hand over the company keys to Musk on Monday, May 2.
“In principle, I don’t believe anyone should own or run Twitter,” stated Dorsey. “It wants to be a public good at a protocol level, not a company. Solving for the problem of it being a company, however, Elon is the singular solution I trust. I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness.”
Musk stated he will make the social-media company private, which means he will now have the power to reshape the application itself. The billionaire has previously claimed that he wants to release Twitter free of some speech bans in the name of free speech, which in a statement Musk called, “the bedrock of a functioning democracy.”
"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," stated Musk.
Musk has been using the Twitter platform for nearly 13 years, and the social media app has become an immense part of his personal brand. He has gained a following of more than 80 million. He’s shared his business ventures and has been vocal to his disparagers. Musk previously Tweeted he was giving “serious thought” into making his own social media platform, and claimed that Twitter does not stay true to the principles of free speech. Soon after that April 25 Tweet, Twitter announced he would be the new owner.
Musk claims that Twitter has excessive moderations for its users, and he plans on freeing some of the rules that were applied to the users. He has claimed that popular social networks should not remove comments. While offensive to some users, they are still legal.
"If it's a gray area, let the tweet exist," stated Musk in a TED Talk.
As well as letting Twitter users have more freedom of speech, Musk may allow users to edit their Tweets after already posting them. This has been a popular request among the users for quite some time, and Musk has made it clear that he in fact supports users changing up their Tweets after already posting. Critics feel it is crucial that users keep their original content up. They fear that adding the ability to edit pre existing posts could lead to removing and covering up harassment and manipulation. Proponents feel the option to edit posts could instead be seen as an easy way to clean up typos and small grammar mishaps.
Twitter currently requires users to be at least 13 years of age, but some teens using Twitter may want to be more cautious on the platform due to policies Musk may add to the app.
"Twitter has tremendous potential," stated Musk in a statement on April 25. "I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”