“Elon Stalin is taking over”
Elon Musk is buying twitter, and some people aren’t happy about it.
James Corden says: “He sees something impossible and he makes it happen. Building the most sought after electric car, blasting off into outer space and now somehow, making twitter even worse.”
One of the big concerns – Under Musk Twitter will no longer effectively control misinformation or it could censor certain viewpoints.
Ari Member says: “Or you could just secretly turn down the reach of their stuff and turn up the reach of something else and the rest of us might not find out about it until after the election.”
Only problem is – that’s exactly what twitter is accused of doing already and one of the reasons Musk wanted to buy it. Here are three ways twitter has already fallen short.
Number one – following its mission statement.
Twitter says it strives to be a “safe space to talk” and have a “positive impact on society”. They also say they try to minimize the distribution of misleading information. Yet they have no problem spreading the self-serving messages of dictators who spread violence and misinformation in the real world.
It’s free to tweet updates about his meetings including this one with the Russian Commissioner for Children’s rights. That meeting was on March 9th, the same day Russia bombed a maternity hospital in Mariupol, killing three people.
Iran’s Supreme Leader is also on twitter even though his country is on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Number two: what’s trending
“Hang Mike Pence” trended in the wake of the January 6th riot, during which rioters were screaming Hang Mike Pence. Twitter eventually stopped the phrase and other variations of it from trending. A spokesperson said “We want trends to promote healthy discussions on Twitter.”
Last but not least, censorship.
On October 14th 2020, less than a month before the presidential election, the New York Post exclusively reported that Hunter introduced Vice President Joe Biden to a board member of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.
That contradicted the Vice President’s denials that he knew nothing about his son’s international business dealings. Twitter took the tweet down and suspended the post’s account. But the story was true.
So what improvements would you like to see Elon Musk make to Twitter? Let us know in the comments below.