Elon Musk bought out Twitter on Monday for about $44 billion, which is the best thing for Twitter.
Musk is a supporter of free-speech and tweeted out, “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”
This is great news because if Musk walks the talk, it will be the first big social media platform that would advocate for free-speech.
There have been huge ban waves from far-right conspiracy theorists, which has been a big talking point.
A Vox article stated, “You might reduce the size of the extremist communities, but possibly at the expense of making the remaining members of those communities even more extreme.”
This is proven in a now-deleted video where Andrew Callaghan interviewed Jason Frank, who was a speaker at the Q conference, said, “I’ve lost two YouTube channels, three Twitters, and four Facebooks. Every time it’s like oh yes! I’m winning.”
The reality is that by banning people like this, it emboldens them and makes these crazy people fight harder.
I think it’s an issue that banning public figures like Donald Trump from all social media platforms is a bad look not only for the U.S.A but for democracy.
While I don’t agree with his attacks, it’s protected in the Constitution under the First Amendment. If we live in the United States where we can say whatever we want, why do we get banned from these social media platforms for doing so?
You hear from other countries like Russia or Authoritarian dictators censoring speech and it’s extremely ironic that the United States, which has the First Amendment in the Constitution, banning people from all social media.
The argument that they’re a private business and they can do whatever they want is terrible because they’re a public utility.
A public utility means that this is an entity that gives goods or services to the public, which these social media platforms are now services.
These social media platforms are used by everyone and they are now becoming a service, which puts them in different standards.
This is not only great for business models because before Musk bought Twitter, Twitter’s stock was losing 12% in stock value, approximately $5 billion, after Trump’s ban.
Twitter also lost about $221 million in 2021, according to Statista but after Musk bought Twitter, Twitter’s stock rose by 5.5%.
By having Twitter as a free-speech advocate, it can bring tons of people into Twitter like Trump and others, which can bring their audience and make Twitter way more money than before.
That is why advertisers, users and other huge social media platforms, should follow in Musk’s footsteps and push for free speech on these outlets, where most people live their lives.
