Here's everything you need to know about Musk's Twitter privatization deal

Musk's Twitter deal includes a $1 billion termination fee from both sides

According to a new SEC filing, elon Musk will have to pay a $1 billion termination fee to Twitter if elon Musk does not make the $44 billion social networking acquisition announced Monday. The document details the terms of the agreement, indicating that in a given case, Twitter will have to pay the same fees.

The billionaire agreed to buy Twitter and take the company private at $54.20 per share, with the company valued at about $43.4 billion.

The deal was funded by several sources, including financing from Morgan Stanley and other financial institutions that have pledged $13 billion in financing while providing Musk with a $12.5 billion margin loan as collateral for his stake in Tesla and other companies. Musk himself is expected to provide about $21 billion in equity financing.

If Musk asks to withdraw from the deal for any reason, it will pay a small price, but for a deal of this size, this is not surprising. In other words, if Musk's financing fails, Twitter will get $1 billion if the deal is canceled.

Under the agreement (Parent, a company created by Musk, is acquiring Twitter):

The merger agreement also provides that, on the one hand, Twitter, and on the other hand, the parent company and the acquiring subsidiary, may specifically enforce the obligations under the merger agreement, but Twitter can only finance Mr. Musk's equity financing commitments if the conditions for the parent company and the acquiring subsidiary to complete the obligations of the merger are met and the debt and margin loan financing is funded or available. As noted above, if the conditions for the parent company and the acquired subsidiary to complete the obligation to complete the merger are met, and the parent fails to complete the merger as required by the merger agreement, including because equity, debt and/or margin loan financing is not funded, the parent company will be required to pay a $1 billion termination fee to Twitter.

Earlier reports did not explicitly state this detail. They believe Twitter will have to pay about 2.5 percent termination fees, but Musk will not have to pay reverse termination fees. However, they did set the time frame for the completion of the deal to be around September to October.

The document also states that transactions may be terminated if they are not completed by 5 p.m. on October 24, 2022. It does, however, provide for a clause that extends the termination date by a further six months if specific closing conditions relating to antitrust law, foreign investment law, or other governmental actions that may affect the completion of an agreement within that time period are met.

The filing also notes that Twitter could still accept another offer before the deal closes, but that offer may require preparation to pay a $1 billion termination fee for Musk's deal. Twitter could also terminate the deal if shareholders voted against it.

The agreement sets out the circumstances under which Twitter can terminate transactions, as follows:

In the event of termination of the merger agreement in certain limited circumstances, Twitter will be required to pay a $1 billion termination fee to the parent company. Specifically, Twitter shall pay this termination fee to the parent company if (1) Twitter terminates the merger agreement to allow Twitter to reach a final agreement on a competitive takeover proposal that constitutes an advantage proposition, or (2) the parent company terminates the merger agreement because the board of directors recommends that Twitter's shareholders vote against the merger agreement or in favor of any competitive acquisition proposal. Twitter will also pay this termination fee to the parent company if (1) a competitive takeover proposal for 50% or more of Twitter's stock or consolidated assets has been publicly announced and not withdrawn, and (2) the merger agreement is terminated because Twitter's shareholders did not pass the merger agreement, or because Twitter materially breached the merger agreement. (3) Within 12 months of the termination of the merger agreement, Twitter entered into a definitive agreement providing for a competitive takeover proposal for 50% or more of Twitter's shares or consolidated assets, and the acquisition was subsequently completed.

Musk bought Twitter just to keep it as it is?

Author: Max Read

Twitter is an interesting company. It has perhaps the most influential social platform on the planet — a network of media, political, technological, and entertainment elites all of whom use the site as a guide to important things in their field— but it's growing slowly and doesn't seem to be consistently profitable. It has a very dedicated core group of users who spend hours a day creating and sharing content for the site, but many of those users will agree that the product is broken and the experience of using Twitter is terrible. It creates the definitive experience of social media platforms – "feeds" – yet everything else about the product (replies, retweets, hashtags, mobile apps, the word "Twitter") is created by users and third parties, only later (often reluctantly) implemented by the platform's developers. For years, the entire company was run as a part-time job by a man who deliberately starved himself, but it somehow devoured so many industries that it became a meeting place for most journalists, political strategists, venture capitalists, and K-pop fans.

One consequence of these many constitutive tensions is that everyone who uses Twitter agrees that the company is somehow "bad" — the product is flawed; the audit is very unsatisfactory; the culture is repulsive; and the business is underperforming. While everyone has a different opinion, it doesn't seem to diminish the shared feeling that the company is bad, even if, perhaps especially, because some people spend so much time on it.

Now, it seems likely that Elon Musk will have Twitter, and it's widely believed that Twitter is either getting less bad or getting worse depending on who you are and what you care about. Some of Miami's most obnoxious venture capitalists seem to believe that Musk will unleash value on the allegedly underperforming company by firing supposedly favored employees and restoring the allegedly lost right to free speech. Some panicked Twitter libertarians fear that Musk will ease scrutiny and unleash chaos, misinformation, trolling, and the dreaded de-informatization of America's fragile political system. (After news broke that Musk's deal was likely to pass, 30,000 people joined The Decentralized, Open Source Social Media Protocol Mastodon.)

I want to make a third possibility that Musk won't implement any major changes, and in fact, he will try to keep Twitter the same level of badness, and in the same way, as in the past, because for Musk, Twitter is actually not bad at all.

I think there's a strange assumption that underpins a lot of the speculation surrounding Musk's plans for Twitter, which is that Musk, like Twitter's powerful users, generally believes that Twitter is bad and needs to be fixed. Many commentators have suggested that Musk bought Twitter either because It made him unhappy in some way ("The world's richest man doesn't like Twitter." The subtitle of a New York Times article on the acquisition reads), or because it failed on some basic task (sustained profitability, realizing its potential value, protecting free speech, etc.), and his plan was to "fix it."

Admittedly, many commentators believe musk bought Twitter to "fix" his commitment to "free speech," in part because he's more or less said things like that. What I'm proposing here is that he's talking nonsense. Why would Musk "fix" anything on Twitter? While for many, the platform may be a "bad" "bad" "hell site" (all of these people have spent most of their waking time there), an unpleasant experience that can't do what we want to do, but for one person, it's certainly not bad, and to one person, Twitter is clearly not badly designed or functioning, he is Elon Musk. The experience of the average person using Twitter is that celebrities they reply to ignore and try to figure out what the hell "Loona" is. Elon Musk's experience on Twitter is that he tweets and then, no matter what he says, no matter what the circumstances, he gets richer. Why would he do anything to change that?

No one has made more money from Twitter than Elon Musk in the past two years, not even Twitter's management or largest shareholder. Jack Dorsey made $860 million from the deal; Musk's net worth has soared from $12 billion in 2018 to $270 billion in 2022. Obviously, there are many reasons why Musk's assets are appreciating so quickly, but without Twitter, it's hard to imagine Musk accumulating the highest net worth on the planet. As Ranjan Roy said yesterday at Marchins:

Conventional wisdom holds that Musk's Twitter account changed Tesla's stock price, allowing zero spending on traditional brand marketing and PR. But his influence on Twitter has also lowered his cost of capital, fueled corporate collaboration, eased regulatory pressure, was a hiring tool, and touched every other element of Tesla as a business (not to mention the other business interests he has).

Elon understands that his use of Twitter is beneficial to every element of his business. It's something he can't match with the rest of the rich (he became the richest man in the world in just nine months).

But I think the key thing here is that it's not just abstract "social media," but a semi-accidental platform in an unstable culture, history, and management that has become a core component of Musk's commercial arsenal. There's a reason he doesn't engage in epic market manipulation tricks on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok; Twitter is just right for Elon in the sense of Goldenlocks: big enough to be important, but small enough to still have a sense of intimacy; elite to be influential but casual enough to be manipulative; free enough to tolerate taunts but moderate enough to be safe for (some) journalists and retail investors; and most importantly to focus on engagement and attention. It is this scale, this level of profit motivation, this source of income, this balance of "moderation" and "freedom of speech" that works for Musk, and any "amendments" he makes have the potential to reduce or weaken some of his power and influence.

In fact, it's a bit extreme, but you can construct the argument that the whole reason Musk decided to buy Twitter was that the company looks like it might be rectifying itself. After years of aimless tyranny— this aimless tyranny fostered Musk's chances of making a fortune. Twitter co-founder and two-term CEO Jack Dorsey was forced to leave last November and was replaced by chief technology officer Parag Agrawal. Agrawal has cleaned up management and set ambitious goals for the company to rethink its products; these moves loom over ambitious revenue targets that the company is facing increasing pressure from investors to achieve. By acquiring Twitter and taking it private, Musk can now control any changes to the product and shift at least some of the growth pressure1.

That's why, I think, the changes Musk suggested he made to "unleash" Twitter's "enormous potential" are either obvious (he plans to "beat spam bots"!). ), which is either impractical (good luck "verifying all humans") or vague to the point of being meaningless (what exactly does it mean to "make the algorithm open source"?). That's why I don't quite believe musk's idea of reinventing Twitter on some fundamental level. If the journalists he relied on were scared away, why would he welcome the Nazi trolls back to the site? Why would he fix the product in a way that might mean he appears on fewer timelines? If these contradictions are very good to you personally, why should you work through them?

To be clear, I don't think it's benevolent; I think Twitter is bad and the transformation would be welcome if only because it could open up new patterns. But from that perspective, Elon Musk didn't buy Twitter to reinvent it; he bought it to make sure it stayed the way it was. In a sense, this could be the worst outcome.

The problem Elon is facing now is that because of the high leverage of the deal, he may have to make Twitter a more effective and profitable venture — but not cut the "features" and ideas of the product that allow him to run amok under securities law. Listen, I'm not saying he made a smart business decision here.

Musk made a big fuss on Twitter

Can someone in this company show some leadership?

Often, when you buy a company, you'll talk about it out of the blue. You talk about its strengths, you talk about its potential, you talk about its glorious future under your leadership. Often, you don't buy a company to revisit its past.

But Elon Musk is not a normal acquirer, and so has his actions in the days after he announced his intention to buy Twitter for $44 billion. Musk didn't act like a white knight to save a beloved but underperforming cultural institution. Instead, he rushed to publicly affirm the company's various half-baked malicious criticisms, all from the right, while insisting that Twitter must be (whatever that means) "political neutrality."

Oh, and he's also denigrating existing employees:

On Wednesday, he tweeted a meme with the face of Twitter's top lawyer, Vijaya Gad, seemingly suggesting that the company's decisions were influenced by "left-wing bias." The tweet came hours after he criticized Gard's 2020 policy decision and was a response to a tweet by a political podcast host who previously called her a "top censorship advocate."

Users on Twitter quickly poured in — calling on Musk to fire Gad or use racist language to describe her.

It's not surprising that Musk disagrees with current policymaking by company executives; he said so from the start. It's also not shocking that he used his massive platform to insult others; for years, that was one of his main uses on Twitter.

But I still find myself surprised because Musk now singles out individual policy enforcers for this kind of public criticism. Three to six months from now, Musk is free to clean up the portal if the deal is completed; it was already clear a few weeks ago that almost no one on Twitter's current C team will survive the transition period. But single-handedly singled out these executives today, while also responding sympathetically to right-wing conspiracy theorists, creates unnecessarily new upheaval for the company in this already turbulent time.

Let's count. Gard is now facing a barrage of racist abuse and death threats. The company's chief marketing officer, Leslie Berland, came under similar attack this week after a leaked recording of her reading aloud employee questions.

It's not just executives: It's said that about a dozen Twitter employees have been attacked by trolls in the past few days. Sometimes it's because they respond to a tweet from Musk; other times, it's as simple as an employee tweeting that they're looking for a new job.

At its best, all of this distracts from the work Twitter did before it was acquired. In the worst case scenario, it leaves some employees terrified of their lives.

And on this issue — the actual consequences for people — Musk, who has a lot to say, has nothing to say.

I've been trying to be open to Musk's acquisition of Twitter. His achievements are real and impressive. I hope he can use his energy to kick-start a new era of innovation, rather than making the company the epicenter of media controversy, as it is now.

But this requires a vision for the future. And over time, Musk doesn't seem to have a real vision. Oh, and of course, there's going to be a product tweak here or there. But for the most part, he's just here to settle old accounts, and he intends to do it in the most personal way possible.

The judge rejected Musk's request to end the 2018 settlement with the SEC

A federal judge on Wednesday rejected Elon Musk's request to annul a 2018 settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission that requires some of his tweets to be pre-approved.

Why it matters. The decision means that despite the deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, Musk could still be barred from freely tweeting about Tesla.

Musk asked a federal judge in March to terminate a consent order that required Tesla's lawyers to review his tweets about the company after he claimed on Twitter that he had "secured funding" to take Tesla private.

The settlement also calls for him to step down as Tesla's chairman and pay a $20 million fine.

Implications: Musk said in court documents that he was coerced into trading with the SEC and claimed he said in his initial tweet that he had received funding to take Tesla private and "never lied to shareholders."

Musk has launched a takeover campaign since asking the court to terminate the settlement with the SEC, which resulted in him buying the company for $54.20 per share.

What they are saying: U.S. District Judge Lewis Lymman said in a written opinion: "Musk, by signing a consent decree in 2018, agreed to the provisions requiring prior approval of any such written communication that contains or reasonably may contain information that is material to Tesla or its shareholders."

He added: "He can't complain now that this provision violates his First Amendment rights." Musk argues that the SEC's use of consent decrees to harass him and to investigate his remarks is equally unjustifiable, especially ironic in this case."

As you might think, Trump is going back to Twitter

Are you used to @realdonaldtrump 473 days of not speaking out on Twitter? Think back. Let your mind wander until January 8, 2021... How do you feel?

Maybe you applaud his sudden disappearance, like a warm breeze of sunshine in winter. Or maybe you're angry at this idea in the name of "freedom of speech"? More likely, you forgot about the initiative, and until recently, it was brought up by Musk.

Regardless of your position, you'd better forget about it because I have a disturbing hunch. When Twitter's suitor Elon Musk takes power, Trump will return to Twitter again and turn the place upside down. It's just a matter of time.

Trump said Musk is a good man, but he reiterated that he will not return to Twitter, he will use TRUTH

In early 2020, Trump also repeatedly insisted that the coronavirus was "under control" and we all know how it turned out.

So, pay attention to Twitter as a social media space! Trump has always fed on attention and will once again spread his political cries through Twitter's evil microphone, though he won't do it right away. At the moment, it's more advantageous for Trump to promote his social network, and I guarantee that almost no one will use his social media. Truth reportedly had only 500,000 daily active users as of early April, dwarfing Twitter's 217 million or so DAUs that Vanity Fair noted yesterday. Sure, a former president has the ability to improve an app's rankings, say, for a few weeks, but looking at it a year later, you'll see what I mean.

But, looking ahead, when Trump's 2024 campaign hit its climax, do you think he'll choose loyalty to TRUTH Social over saying no to Twitter and its huge media clout? Trump is loyal to anything. He will come back whenever he has the chance. Next question.

How do we know that Musk will lift the ban? He didn't say anything, right?

Musk has said enough, but allow me to go back.

When Twitter banned Trump's account, some of the former president's most eager supporters protested the move in defense of "free speech," arguing that safeguards to prevent the administration from overinflation should also include gibberish on Twitter. It's ridiculous, but Musk's views on free speech and content control dovetail quite well with their views, and conservatives know it. (Personally, I'd rather build a hospitable town square that people want to visit than a plaza to celebrate these weirdos, but that's not Twitter, isn't it?) ）

Musk, for example, didn't get into the minutiae of content moderation, but seemed to want to fumble around, hoping that even his "worst critics" would stick with the post. If that's what he's focused on, then what reason does he have not to welcome the return of Rosie O'Donnell (an American actress and former talk show host known for criticizing Trump)?

At least Jack Dorsey believed Inron, right?

As he sounds, twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey spoke shortly after Twitter's board accepted Musk's offer, supporting the site's future acquirers. After a strong warning that "in principle" he does not "believe that anyone should own or run Twitter", Dorsey said "Elon is the only solution I trust" when it comes to "solving the problem that it is a company". Believe me, you can trust Musk. Well, we have to shrug our shoulders and let's re-accept @RealDonaldTrump.

Twitter's decision to ban Trump's account on social media was the first to because of two tweets, and largely depending on the timing and context following the january 6 riots last year. This is first and foremost a factor of uncertainty. Add to that Musk's management and posting ideology, which is incompatible with picky concepts like nuance. Twitter users can imagine what a torturous atmosphere there will be on Twitter in the future. On the contrary, the serial CEO often undermines unions, hates critics, and laughs at cynicism, not caring about the health of the community or the ideals of social order and virtue such as treating others with dignity.

Musk, you have no idea what the hell you're talking about

Elon Musk has once again lost face on the global stage, proudly declaring that he is only familiar with the extremely complex concepts of freedom of expression, censorship, and the rights and privileges of individuals and government authorities at the elementary school level. The fact that this aggressive ignorant has the potential to take over one of the largest social platforms on the planet should scare you.

Here's what the world's richest man said earlier today on the platform he intends to acquire.

By 'free speech', I mean speech that complies with the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the scope of the law. If people want to reduce freedom of speech, they will ask the government to pass the relevant laws. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.

Elon has one advantage. He exhibited a distinctly innate ability to contain in a single sentence more deliberate and privileged ignorance than almost anyone else on earth.

These statements are fundamentally wrong — whether in fact, morally, in practice, or in other respects— and I hardly know where to start.

First, he might want to look at the most basic description of what free speech and censorship are. Censorship refers to the speech of people under the power of state authorities. Freedom of expression is a guarantee that, with the exception of a few harmful examples, no act defined as speech is illegal, such as hate speech, harassment, and other special circumstances that we criminalize as social decisions (which are under constant consultation).

But it's an incredibly complex and nuanced concept, rather than a thick thick line with censorship on one side and no gratuitous restrictions on the other. Courts are constantly (for example, at any time in legal history, there are huge cases that set new precedents) literally define and redefine what is meant by "consistent with the law". We have a full branch of government whose job is to interpret the law. There are no simple solutions or algorithms or a set of hard rules to manage this problem, and Elon seems to think that there is such an idea, or suggest formulating one, which is the first sign that he knows nothing about what he is saying.

This is followed by "censorship that goes well beyond the scope of the law." Presumably, he was referring to "censorship," such as the moderation of private actors such as corporations, which is not censorship (only the government can be censorship), but in reality, by definition and legal precedent, these companies are expressions of free speech.

By seeking to restrict the behavior of private companies (who are considered private companies under the law musk seems to be very concerned about) in such situations, he is proposing to restrict their freedom of expression. By suggesting that the government define and enforce these restrictions, he is actually proposing a review system.

It wasn't some strange logical distortion, it was the actual meaning of what he was saying. He just didn't know what he was talking about.

Next, "if people want to reduce freedom of speech, they will ask the government to pass the relevant laws." Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people. All right! There are actually a lot of similar suggestions. Now, the United States is in the midst of a real and terrible battle over actual free speech, and teachers are being told — informed by their governments, which makes it censorship! What they can and cannot teach in the classroom. What subjects can and cannot be taught in schools.

Florida and Texas and other countries wanted to restrict free speech; in fact, they had succeeded. Who asked them to do that? Is it "the people"? Is it the "people" who demand a ban on the use of math textbooks that mention black mathematicians in American history? Or explain why someone might have two dads that are prohibited by law? The idea that government actions, as the name suggests, is the will of the people is one of the most naïve things I have ever encountered. Did Elon know that voting rights were being systematically dismantled and that the bill was written by lobbyists? Does he know about the historical constituency divisions, redistricting, repression of voters and rat behavior in general that constitute "demanding that the government pass the law"?

Do you fucking know what the "will of the people" is, Elon? He was born rich, and now he is rich enough to rival the country, but he has no idea who the "people" are. What he thinks they want is a vacuum tunnel that can fit their $80,000 car into it to shorten their commute from Los Angeles to San Francisco or the lifestyle on both sides of the strait.

He might be surprised that beyond the beggar bubble in his reply, the "will of the people" is that billionaires probably shouldn't exist at all. If he asked, the "people" might tell him that his unfathomable wealth should be liquidated for reducing things like world hunger—Elon had said that if someone gave him a plan, he would fix it, and then forget about it. Probably because he doesn't know what hunger tastes like! "。

More relevant to Twitter News is the baby's first free speech debate on one of history's most complex and controversial topics, meaning his plans for social networking must be genuine, truly stupid and ignorant.

You might be surprised to hear this, Elon, but "people" have been talking about this for centuries. Maybe review your freshman's ethics and philosophy classes, or just have someone summarize your reading list into a few booklets. Others, like the smartest people of every generation we've been able to document, have thought about these topics in detail long before you're born into wealth and privilege. Your point of view is ignorant because it claims knowledge where there is no knowledge, claims superiority over something you have never considered. You can run a Hyperloop in a vacuum of Elon Musk's civics. A dragon spaceship can safely float in the gaps of Elon Musk's cultural and legal labyrinth of expression and identity in free societies.

All of this portends an incredibly simplistic and harmful approach to free speech and moderation on a platform that desperately needs to mature, humanize and react quickly — something Twitter, Facebook, and everyone else has been trying (failing, but slowly advancing) for more than a decade. Elon Musk doesn't seem qualified to propose or manage these things.

Elon, your thoughts about free speech aren't evil or hateful as I'm talking, they're just wrong. They are wrong because you know nothing about the most basic context and precedent surrounding these concepts, nor do you know the highly specialized scenario knowledge that influences the creation and management of modern social media platforms. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Musk's Twitter plan is a huge nuisance

Let's take it apart

Twitter has accepted takeover offers from Tesla and SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk, leading netizens to a full day of wild speculation about a question: How will Musk change Twitter? Musk's stated plans are a set of features and principles that he may or may not be serious about, but they demonstrate a range of potentially conflicting goals and changes whose mechanisms are outlined in little— if any.

Musk pointed out his priorities in a press release echoing his previous statements about potential changes. "Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of a normal democratic system, and Twitter is a digital city square where issues vital to the future of humanity are debated." "I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the new features of the product, making the algorithm open source to increase user trust, defeating spam and troll bots, and certifying all humans."

In other words, he has four main ideas to unleash Twitter's potential, and each one is a minefield. Let's break them down one by one.

free speech

Online speech is a minefield, and if Musk really intends to build a minimal tweet globally, he could run into a huge conflict in countries that limit hate speech and disinformation. But Musk doesn't seem to care much about this in his views on free speech. In a TED interview, he said Twitter should "match the laws of the country," suggesting he could continue to practice practices such as region locking for certain content and follow rules such as India's social media regulations.

Of course, Musk has more leeway in changing Twitter's policies, including what types of content are banned and when to suspend users. He said he'd rather make a mistake in "timeouts" and leave marginal content online. Many have speculated that this will bring former President Donald Trump back to the platform, which is not an unreasonable prediction, but Musk has not publicly said about it. (Trump has also claimed he won't be back.)

There are some good overviews of how Musk might decide to adjust Twitter's policies and the dangers he will face, including Charlie Wozer from Atlantic magazine and Mike Musnick from TechDirt. At this point, however, we don't know much about how Musk will specifically change Twitter's rhetoric policy. He may urge admins to reduce moderation and potentially keep the problematic content alive. But almost every site that calls for "free speech" ends up banning content that makes users, advertisers, or site owners themselves very unpleasant — so it's too early to say how far his promise will go.

"Open source" algorithm

One of Musk's areas of focus is recommendation algorithms that magnify or shrink tweets and accounts in potentially biased ways. He proposed releasing Twitter's algorithmic sorting system on Github for public review and comment, making a ranking system similar to "top tweets" theoretically clearer.

Musk describes the situation of making the algorithm "open source," but he doesn't outline specific plans to follow open source licensing requirements, so he probably means it in a more informal sense. He may also be describing something that works in Twitter's core product, or through a separate but Twitter-funded open-source Bluesky project — which will have a different impact on Twitter's core applications.

Transparency is often sought after, and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has suggested letting users choose between different recommendation systems. Still, many online platforms (including Google and Reddit) don't disclose exactly how their systems work, as this would provide spammers and other bad actors with a game system instruction manual. Twitter's algorithms also won't explain how any particular tweet is prioritized, unless Twitter publishes a large amount of supplemental data, nor necessarily justifies any human review that intersects with it. And, it can be very vulnerable for those who want to make malicious claims by taking them out of context, deliberately misinterpreting them, or spreading conspiracy theories.

Beyond that, Musk has likewise not described how he will handle any suggestions from other developers or readers, which could involve a lot of spam (and perhaps incorporate Twitter's algorithms). Maybe he could follow the path Dorsey suggested, get people to share their own version of twitter's recommendation system, and turn it into a truly open source system? Maybe he could set up a committee similar to Facebook's oversight board and approve the proposed changes? We won't know for a moment and a half.

Spam and scam bots

Musk said "spam and scam bots" and "machine water army" are Twitter's new number one public enemies. This makes sense, as Musk is a perennial exploiter of cryptocurrency scammers. However, how he manages this issue is an open question. Unlike speech supremacy, there are no huge philosophical differences here – no one likes spam. Twitter has purged fake accounts and banned certain features, such as tweeting from multiple accounts at the same time, which facilitate bot spam. So, how can Musk do better?

Well, Musk may have some sort of anti-spam account tool that hasn't been released so far, though there's no indication he's spent more time thinking about it than Twitter's own engineers. (Again: Twitter already has a lot of incentives to control spam accounts!) Or Musk could simply decide to make a fuss about blocking non-malicious automated account activity, locking access to Twitter's API, or lowering content for humans who behave too much like bots.

Unfortunately, this goal may conflict with the freedom of expression and transparency he promotes. As mentioned above, announcing the inner workings of Twitter's amplification system would also give spammers more tools. And a strict automated crackdown could stop bots that perform interesting and valuable services on Twitter — like Big Tech Alert, which tracks who Silicon Valley's big names (including Musk) are following and unfollowing, or Editing TheGrayLady, which articulates how The New York Times adjusts its headlines and copies over time. Robots are a long-loved part of Twitter, and it may be harder than Musk imagines to distinguish a good robot from a bad one.

Certified for all humans?

The strangest and arguably most damaging part of Musk's Twitter speech was his last three words. "Certifie all humans". Musk made similar comments on Twitter before the acquisition, wording it "certifies all real humans, after he had promised to beat the robots. However, he has not specified the objectives of such certification or how it will be carried out.

"Certification" may have several different meanings here. It could mean that people have to go through some kind of captcha-style "Am I human" test to post — though, like banning spam, twitter might have done it if there was an easy way to do it without affecting well-meaning users. This could also mean requiring people to submit proof of their identity that they are specific humans, either to obtain a verification token (which Musk has previously suggested) or to operate on the service.

Twitter has long worked to allow anonymous or pseudonymous speech, and has even submitted legal briefs arguing its benefits. Requiring users to revoke their anonymity would greatly weaken that commitment. Even if the name is not known by other users, the collection of real-life information provides a repository for the government and is vulnerable to hacking or security breaches. The Electronic Frontier Foundation noted yesterday that "there is no easy way to request verification without causing damage to some users and freedom of expression."

Musk likes to throw out strange ideas as a provocation, so his announcement yesterday may not ultimately reflect where the platform is headed. Still, if Twitter's past review challenges show any signs, each change brings with it a new set of questions to answer. The question of openness is how much Musk is interested in managing the consequences.

Musk's acquisition of Twitter has exposed its larger strategy

A small theory about what he did on Twitter

Written by Ranjan Roy

I'm Ranjan. As we move into what appears to be the 6942nd week of musk-Twitter reality show, I'll try to come up with a theory about his true purpose. I admit that when this saga began, I thought Musk's intentions were just to swing out performance art. However, in the context of Tesla, the SEC, and the current overall market, the more you look at Twitter's privatization, the more you feel that it is part of a larger plan.

When I went to publish the article, I saw that Twitter-Elon might have completed the deal. This article is of course a bit of a rambling guess, but I'll say it again.

One of my theories is that in January 2018, Tesla ceased to be an electric car company and transformed itself into some sort of financial instrument. That's when Tesla's board announced a new compensation package called "bold" and "amazing." This headline of the New York Times documents it.

Musk will bet his entire salary on reaching very specific milestones. One of the significance of the milestones is purely to increase Tesla's market capitalization. The other is about revenue and adjusted EBITDA. This article of Fortune is the best analytical (https://fortune.com/2021/03/16/elon-musk-net-worth-tesla-stock-tsla-options-compensation-plan/) article I have ever read, and it outlines the exact underlying scenario (the chart below is from a SEC document):

In total, there are 12 sections to decipher and analyze in conjunction with market capitalization growth and other operational results. Let's remember that it was only four years ago, tesla was worth about $60 billion, and Musk's net worth was about $12 billion.

The company's idea of increasing its market cap by a factor of 11 is called a "ridiculous" plan:

If Mr. Musk somehow raises tesla's value to $650 billion — a figure that many experts would consider ridiculous, which would make Tesla one of the top five U.S. companies at current valuations — his stock reward could be worth as much as $55 billion (assuming the company doesn't issue any shares over the next decade, which is unrealistic).

The package was radical, and in the summer of 2018, a shareholder filed a class action lawsuit for this purpose, which will soon be heard, but now the plan is basically complete.

The whole process is like a heroic journey. In early 2018, when that compensation package was agreed, there were many questions about whether Tesla could expand its manufacturing capabilities. Musk has repeatedly said that Tesla is on the verge of bankruptcy, but in the months and years that followed, Tesla stabilized and continued to grow. It went from producing about 90,000 cars per quarter in 2018 to nearly 300,000 last quarter. Revenue increased from ~$12 billion to $54 billion. It produced nearly 1 million vehicles in 2021.

Something else happened at the same time. The stock price seems to have risen all the way to the moon and occupied the seemingly impossible market value segment. While thinking about Tesla's recent history, I looked at two pictures. One made Musk "very rich man" and the other made him "the richest man in the world."

The first is the stock movement from mid-2019 to February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic. It's normal that "Tesla is a company that will be the market leader in electric vehicles" initiative. The company has shown that it will not crash. It's becoming increasingly clear that even after the September 2018 settlement, the SEC won't give Musk a real knock. Musk has made huge promises, such as that 1 million Tesla self-driving taxis will be in service by 2020.

Huge commitments, combined with recent operational results, form a solid mix, with stocks more than doubling since the compensation package was determined. In any normal market, this is... Good. This is the "normal company stock rise" path.

Then, March 2020 came and, like so many other things, things got crazy.

The stock rose nearly 1,000% in a matter of months. Yes, the company is doing pretty well, but the extent of this move will certainly be studied in the coming years. That's also when we started to see TSLA stock splits and Cathie Wood peddling crazy price targets. You start to keep hearing "Tesla is actually a battery company" or "Tesla is also an insurance company." It's always easy to empower a stock price with a story.

Of course, the early stages of COVID-19 were the dumbest and most magical times the market has ever seen. We have our Zooms and Shopifys, AMC and Gamestops, and all the other stories we'll never forget. But none of these stories have a bold potential compensation package that could create the world's richest man.

Musk's big theory in early 2022

Can we take a moment to study together how crazy this is — just two years after the boldest compensation plan ever made, Musk became the world's richest man in nine months of the craziest and most chaotic social and financial markets (Note 1). This must be the fastest accumulation of wealth in human history (is there any historical counterpart, perhaps a Sumerian king or something?). ）

And it also laid the groundwork for my small-scale theory of the Twitter takeover that is happening now:

Musk recognizes that his Twitter account and unfettered rhetoric are critical to his current and future business interests.

He also wanted to castrate the SFC.

The compensation package is nearing completion and it is time to consider the next option.

He knew the first quarter would be a big event for the TSLA. It's always good to make a fuss about strength.

But it could also be Tesla's most optimistic time ever.

Even if Tesla continues to grow, it's hard to imagine that the stock of TSLA will have a lot of upside.

Musk chased Twitter not to distract himself, but to diversify. The past few months have been Musk piecing together pieces for his next steps, and he's doing it from an advantageous position. It's like a super-strong Solarcity acquisition where different business interests will come together in unexpected ways. We just learned that Musk is registering the property to build a "super corporation" called X Holdings.

Twitter is all about things after Tesla. Exactly what it looks like, I don't know, but at least ask why this is happening now.

Theoretical Element 1 – Twitter exists

Well, we all know he tweets a lot, but that first thing starts with how many Tweets Musk tweets each month. I found this dataset on Kaggle, which is all Musk tweets counted by month from 2010 to March 2021.

The first thing that popped up was the surge in the spring of 2013. A quick search reveals headlines like "Tesla stock is up 40% this week" in CNN's May 2013. Then, in the summer of 2018, you'll see his behavior spike in the frenzy of Twitter. Please read on and read it later (Note 3).

Musk has since paid a fine for his Twitter actions. He had to find a "Twitter nanny." Through these means, he never stopped tweeting. Since the spring of 2013, it's clear that Tesla's business results and Musk's tweets can have a self-reinforcing impact, and this virtuous circle has only become more pronounced in recent years. Shortly after Musk signed off on his huge sum, the real high-traffic tweets began, and all that's left is a history of wealth accumulation.

Conventional wisdom holds that Musk's Twitter account changed Tesla's stock price, allowing zero spending on traditional brand marketing and PR. But his influence on Twitter has also lowered his cost of capital, fueled corporate collaboration, eased regulatory pressure, was a hiring tool, and touched every other element of Tesla as a business (not to mention the other business interests he has).

Musk understands that his use of Twitter is good for every business element of his business.

Without his Twitter account, everything wouldn't work.

Theory Plate 2 - Kill the SFC

In early March, I complained that Musk's fight with the SEC was escalating, which was very strange. Tesla's business has been as solid as ever, and the SEC has been completely unmoved. My view at the time was that maybe Musk was under threat of being belittled by the SEC, and it was all preemptive.

Later, we learned that this point in time confirmed at least something very strategic. Musk began buying shares in TWTR at the end of January. At the same time, he began to escalate this legal battle with the SEC. One involved the SEC documents and the other involved lengthy legal motions, but they all happened in perfect parallel.

I believe a big part of this is musk making a move to make sure his Twitter account can't be restricted, and certainly not banned.

He has argued that the SEC restricted his freedom of speech when it "restricted" his tweets. He also attributed the entire acquisition of Twitter to some vague vision of free speech. From a temporal and strategic point of view, the two actions are almost certainly simultaneous.

The SEC once had the potential to become more aggressive in controlling Musk's accounts. The "verdict" motion against him is passing, and things get trickier for Musk. If someone repeatedly violates securities laws with their Twitter account, it is still not too much for the public to revoke your use rights by the regulator.

After the past few weeks, can you imagine how much the public would react if regulators tried to impose any restrictions? Even if he didn't end up owning Twitter, can you imagine if Ron DeSantis would be forced to delete a tweet? Now imagine that he ended up owning Twitter and taking it private. Musk could have violated all securities laws ever related to public communications, and at worst, he would have been fined relatively small. If the REPUBLICANs win back Congress, can you imagine any regulator going after Musk reinstates Trump?

If Twitter is vital to his overall business interests and his account feels any threat, buying Twitter for $46 billion would be cheap to maintain and increase his net worth of $270 billion.

Theoretical Element #3 – The Next Package

Tesla just released its stunning first-quarter earnings report, unlocking 9th to 11th of the original 12 reimbursement plans. Long-term Tesla bullmen like Dan Ives are already dreaming about how huge the next scenario might be, and that's critical — everyone has to think about the next compensation package.

For the next iteration, Musk's path to a billionaire may not be done through Tesla or TSLA stock. Just think about how many things at TSLA have been perfectly resolved over the past few years:

The regulatory environment of the Trump era was non-existent (however, even so, the SEC was running after him). Now, NHTSA, NTSB, SEC, and even ftcs are looking to become more aggressive. Even with regard to public opinion, the overall regulatory environment has changed.

The COVID-19 volatility and the whole meme atmosphere, driven by ZIRP and a million other factors, are over.

A few years ago, there was almost no real competition for electric vehicles. Now, Ford has beaten Tesla at delivering trucks, and it's clear that every other car company is moving quickly.

Tesla has shown an amazing ability to extract free cash flow from its customers. It received an estimated $2 billion in pure cash from people paying for fully autonomous driving services, and even millions of cash injections from Cyberteruck and other unfinished vehicle deposits.

It also received $1.5 billion in regulatory credit from other auto companies. All these purely profitable channels cannot last forever.

Musk has managed to walk a tightrope with certain governments, but that certainly won't last forever, and they will start promoting rivals at home.

Tesla is not a monopolist. The company is likely to reach a few million cars and maintain a key EV player position for years to come, but stocks are still likely to remain sideways. The first quarter of this year felt like a climax, and everything came together perfectly. Musk knew it was going to be an explosive quarter and began implementing some sort of plan in January.

The fourth element of theory - the lack of imagination

In 2019, when Musk promised to rent a driverless car within a year, it really captured people's imagination. Nowadays, aside from Casey Wood and the team, it doesn't really feel like anyone is pretending to be serious about those magical futuristic lines of business (yes, ARK's new model says driverless taxis will account for 62% of Tesla's total revenue by 2026).

Even the thing about the dancing robot shows how difficult it is to capture our collective imagination. For those who are not familiar with it, we are here to mention that last November Tesla announced a humanoid robot thing. At the end of the speech, a man in a robot outfit is dancing (yes, it's true):

On a recent earnings call, Musk took a half-believe in the theoretical humanoid robot production line on the issue that could be more valuable than Tesla's electric car. To be honest, the whole thing feels a bit routine. I've been watching these things for years, perhaps tired of Musk's commitment as a whole, but a lot of these moonshot manifestos have begun to feel a little abandoned —from Musk, from fans, from the media, from the infrastructure as a whole, from what was once a fanaticism about them.

However, the Twitter thing really lit a fire. Maybe Musk really intends to join the board and become a partial owner of a partnership, but when he sees the energy generated by the potential acquisition, he goes all in. Musk's acquisition of Twitter produced the energy of dialogue that rockets and robots once generated.

Theoretical element five - they are already on sale

All great entrepreneurs are always thinking about the next avenue for growth. Musk has incredible entrepreneurial instincts, and he has to realize that this won't come from Tesla. No matter what compensation scheme is conceived, there will be no other factors that come together to prop up Tesla and reward Musk in his way.

And the problem is - they're already selling TSLAs. Musk sold $16 billion in shares last year (some of which were supposed to pay options taxes, but he did reduce that expense by donating $5.7 billion to unnamed charities). It's not just Musk. His brother Kimbal, who sold a bunch at $1229, is now under investigation for insider trading.

Kathy Wood and ARK are also selling. While releasing a report with a TSLA target of $4600, they have been profiting and cutting their TSLA positions in their flagship ARK fund from nearly 4 million shares to less than 1 million shares. One of Tesla's biggest cheerleaders has publicly said the stock will quadruple while reducing their stake by 75 percent.

And you can't blame anyone for selling. When a stock rises 1700% (starting in January 2018) and faces the brunt of legal, competitive and internal challenges, it can certainly take a profit.

What's next?

My mini-theory is that this chain of events. The acquisition of Twitter, the escalation of the SEC's struggle, Tesla's blowout quarterly earnings report — it's all for the next big plan. Musk saw an opportunity earlier this year. Tesla's business is growing, his compensation package is nearly complete, the SEC is threatening his Twitter account, and Tesla's stock has been stalled for six months. Every great entrepreneur understands the importance of momentum, and he decides to take advantage of the convergence of this series of events.

At first, I was skeptical that Musk would buy Twitter, but I really began to believe it was part of a larger strategy. We can start to see more strategic fragments. Potential new "super corporations". He just raised a bunch of money for the Boring Company. Twitter is now both a potentially undervalued financial asset, a political asset, and a marketing tool. I think we're going to see some incredibly bold behavior soon, as well as breathtaking compensation packages that are more creative and more corporate than what we saw in 2018.

Note 1: For me, news reports are always strange, how can you casually write the details of "the world's richest man".

Given the excitement of reporters parsing every Elvis presley lyric, even a fiery meme tweet, I'm still shocked that no one touched the fastest accumulation of wealth in human history. Just read this clipped article from the New York Times on January 7, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/business/elon-musk-worlds-richest.html, everything can be figured out relative to the bizarre events that have occurred in the past few weeks.

Note 2: The dataset I use is only Musk's tweets, not replies. Given how indispensable Stan elevation reply technology is to Elon, I would be really curious if someone had this data.

Note 3: My writing and complaining often led me to be labeled as hateful of Musk, but for me, he was the embodiment of "don't hate the player, hate the game." What I hate is the game, its lack of regulation, the emerging marketization of U.S. financial markets, the weaknesses of traditional journalism in holding unconventionals accountable, and so much more. I truly believe Musk is doing what most entrepreneurs would do, and he's doing a great job. If no one stopped him, why stop?

Twitter employees have been working for years to make it safer, and Musk could have undermined it all

Source: Time

There's an old joke circulating among Twitter employees that on this platform it's like playing a giant online multiplayer game, and every day there's a different protagonist — meaning someone who has been criticized, harassed, or pushed into the spotlight. Like this joke, you have only one goal in the Twitter game: never be that protagonist yourself.

One day in 2018, Twitter was led by Vernon-Answorth, a British diver who spent days helping rescue a group of Thai boys trapped in a flood cave. After billionaire Elon Musk offered rescue divers a miniature submarine, Unsworth told the media that Musk's idea was just a useless PR stunt. Musk then tweeted that (he later deleted the tweet) baselessly accusing the man of being a "pedophile." The tweet sparked hundreds of Musk fans to verbally abuse and humiliatingly attack it. Musk later apologized in court for the tweets, saying he didn't mean people to take them literally.

The story is an example of a "paparazzi": a powerful Phenomenon of Twitter users stimulating their fan base to harass others. For years, the Twitter staff team has worked — albeit with limited success — to reduce paparazzi and other common forms of abuse.

On April 25, these Twitter employees learned that the board of directors had accepted a $44 billion bid from the world's richest man, and that Musk, the mastermind of the "pedophile" affair, could become their new boss.

In a statement announcing Twitter's agreement to let him buy the social network, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX said in grand terms that anyone who follows his claims about colonizing Mars or building electric cars is familiar to anyone. "Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of a normal democratic system, and Twitter is a digital city square where matters vital to the future of humanity will be debated."

But on the front lines of the fight for a space for online democracy, many have questioned whether Musk's ownership of Twitter will undermine, rather than strengthen, democracy. For employees who witnessed Musk's own actions on the platform, the billionaire's rhetoric about free speech appears hollow. Musk, who has more than 85 million followers, not only used his influential account to directly insult critics and share memes on the toilet, but he also issued "false and misleading public statements" according to regulators that boosted Tesla's stock price and hurt investors.

Some Twitter employees believe the record augurs particularly badly for the company's anti-harassment efforts. "His followers have repeatedly been perpetrators of targeted harassment, and the use of his profile has encouraged paparazzi — which is exactly what we're trying to limit," said an employee of Twitter's platform review team, "a team that works to make the site a safer online space for users." The employee said: "Since Trump was banned, Musk has become the number one user of Twitter. The employee, who was not authorized to speak publicly, added that they fear musk's acquisition would at least reduce user trust in Twitter's anti-abuse efforts, which could at worst lead to the work being canceled or prioritized.

Members of marginalized communities — who disproportionately fall victim to online threats and abuse — are the ones most protected by Twitter's current content moderation system. Activists from these communities, like Twitter employees, fear that these protections will be lifted. Jelani Drew-Davi, campaign manager for digital civil rights group Kairos, told TIME a few days before the deal: "If Elon Musk takes over, the damage will spread from Twitter employees' inability to implement what they need to keep the platform secure." As an example of Musk's record on a similar issue, Drew David cites a lawsuit alleging a culture of rampant racist abuse against black workers at a Tesla factory in California.

Since the explosive growth of social media use more than a decade ago, researchers and technologists have developed an understanding of the ways in which the design of social media sites has had an impact on civic discourse and, ultimately, on the democratic process. One of their main findings is that websites that prioritize free speech tend to be a space inundated with harassment in civic discourse, limiting participation to the privilege of a few.

The finding provides a reference for Twitter's recent work. While the company did remove tweets and ban the accounts of serious offenders, much of its current practice is focused on encouraging users to become more friendly. Before Musk made his bid, one of the platform's established priorities was to promote "safe, inclusive, and authentic conversations." It also commits to "minimizing the spread and impact of harmful or misleading information, especially when its purpose is to disrupt the process of citizenship or cause offline harm." In cases where a tweet is found to be detrimental to citizen discussion but not illegal, such as misinformation or insults, the tweet can be removed from the recommendation algorithm, which means that Twitter does not elevate it to the feeds of users who do not directly follow its author, rather than removing it entirely from the platform. It's unclear whether these policies will continue under Musk's ownership, which has slammed what he calls a "shadow ban."

"In a way, [Musk's] goals are aligned with ours, and we're certainly interested in protecting democracy," said a Twitter employee on the review team. But the idea of bringing more free speech to the platform betrays his naivety in concrete details. A lot of platforms [have] been built on this free speech principle, but the reality is that either they become a pit that people don't want to use, or they realize that they actually need some level of scrutiny. "

Business analysts point out that content moderation is also good for profits. Paul Barrett, deputy director of NYU's Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, said in a statement: "Without strict content moderation, the platform Musk seeks to own will be inundated with spam, pornography, anti-vaccine misinformation, QAnon conspiracies and fraudulent activity that sabotages the midterm and 2024 presidential elections." "This is not a business that most social media users or advertisers want to associate with."

Musk's acquisition is not a simple story. It went through several tortuous stages as the money looked suspicious and Twitter's board seemed hesitant to adopt a strategy known as a "poison pill" to fend off acquisitions. Throughout, Musk saw his pursuit as a confrontation with the recalcitrant Silicon Valley elite. His statements on free speech tend to be consistent with Republicans' view that conservatives are under unfair scrutiny from tech companies, and that the move could open the door to former President Donald Trump's return to the platform, which Musk has said he prefers to "pause" users who violate the site's rules rather than permanently ban them. (Twitter banned Trump permanently after Jan. 6, 2021, for inciting violence during an attempt to unprofemocratically overturn the results of the 2020 election.) ）

The debate on transparency on Twitter

In addition to vague promises such as adding edit buttons and eliminating spam on the platform, Musk's most substantial call is to ask Twitter to be more transparent in its decision-making. He wants Twitter to "open source" its algorithm so users can discover when Twitter stopped recommending their tweets to other users. "This action should be obvious," he said at the April 14 TED conference, "so there is no behind-the-scenes manipulation, either algorithmic or artificial."

But employees who work in the content moderation space say that while full transparency is a noble goal, informing users of which specific tweets have been "downgraded" can actually provide useful information to bad actors about how to circumvent restrictions on spam, misinformation, and hate speech. In fact, Twitter is already the most transparent of all social networks when it comes to sharing how its algorithms work, as well as studying its own flaws and sharing results publicly.

The study suggests that in practice, a more conservative view may benefit the most from Twitter's algorithmic design. Last October, Twitter published research showing that its algorithms behaved dubiously: On the eve of the 2020 U.S. election, right-wing party news sources received more impetus from Twitter's algorithms than moderate or left-leaning news sources. The study also found that politicians in six of the seven countries, including the United States, were similarly affected. Research shows that Twitter's algorithm recommends posts from mainstream right-wing parties to more users than politicians from centrist or left-wing parties.

Six months on, the team is continuing to study the algorithm's biases, while some conservatives believe the work means interfering with free speech. According to Twitter, early indications are that the platform's encouragement of center-right politicians is not an intrinsic quality of its algorithms. Instead, the researchers found that amplification changes over time as topics people care about and how users behave. The data is helping researchers begin to understand Twitter as a "social technology system" and define the degree to which political content is normal and abnormally algorithmic amplification. Such an understanding may one day lead companies to intervene when dangerous real-world events occur. But doing so would be a political intervention that must be based on Twitter's values as a company. Overnight, those values seem to have gone from "promoting healthy conversations" to musk's self-proclaimed "absolutism" of free speech.

With each tweet limited to 280 characters, it's not easy to engage in nuanced discussions about complex research and value judgments — and in this heated atmosphere, even Twitter's own employees have the potential to be the daunting leading figures on Twitter. Rumman Chowdhury, the team leader who conducted the algorithm amplification study, said in a series of tweets that she opposed Musk's acquisition of the company, but she did not say it was out of concern that his acquisition would mean the end of her job. Instead, her comments seemed to refer to his ability to use the mob on Twitter as a weapon against critics. She wrote: "Musk's direct chilling effect bothers me very much. "Twitter has a beautiful culture of hilarious constructive criticism, and I've seen that culture become silent because his minions attack employees." Soon, she turned off notifications for that thread, adding. "The trolls have arrived."

Twitter assured advertisers that Musk wouldn't make the platform a more toxic platform than it is now

Musk's "free speech" program could unleash a wave of unpleasant content

Twitter has reportedly contacted advertising agencies to reassure them that Musk's plans for the platform won't make it a brand-unfriendly place.

Musk promised that under his leadership, Twitter would do its utmost to "free speech" — perhaps only removing content that was clearly illegal. However, as experts point out, this would mean loosening restrictions on a variety of unpleasant but legitimate forms of speech: from Nazi propaganda and ISIS beheading videos to medical misinformation. These are all things that businesses don't want to be related to, even if they're indirect.

According to an email seen by the Financial Times, Twitter has reached out to advertising agencies to allay that concern, telling them that ads they make for big brands won't appear next to offensive content. The report did not provide any further details, but reflected widespread fear that Musk's leadership would lead to an upsurge in hate and toxic rhetoric on Twitter.

Activist groups such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Naacops for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) have expressed concern that Musk's leadership will be a booster for anti-Semitic and racist voices.

"We have first-hand experienced that hatred and extremism in the digital space can lead to physical violence"

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of ADL, told Haaretz: "We have first-hand experienced that hatred and extremism in the digital space can lead to physical violence, particularly against Jews and other marginalized groups. "Twitter has made some progress in dealing with this hatred in recent years. So while we want to be cautiously optimistic about how Elon Musk will run the platform, he hasn't shown concern about these issues so far. We fear he might take things in a very different direction. "

DERK Johnson, president of the NAACP, issued a statement saying: "Mr. Musk: Free speech is good, hate speech is unacceptable. Disinformation, misinformation, and hate speech have no place on Twitter. Johnson specifically pointed to the possibility that Musk would allow former President Donald Trump to return to Twitter, arguing that it would make the platform a "petri dish for hate speech, or a lie that subverts our democracy."

In 2020, ADL led a boycott of Facebook ads in response to the company's hate speech policy. A year later, however, ADL said the campaign mostly only led to "incremental" changes, while Facebook's ad revenue did not appear to have been affected.

Because of its relatively small size, Twitter may be more susceptible to coordinated actions by advertisers. (In 2021, it will have $4.5 billion in advertising revenue, compared to $114 billion for Facebook owner Meta.) But Musk himself said he wasn't buying the company for money, mostly interested in his own ideological goals. Such comments should most likely be considered valuable. (Twitter isn't a cash cow, but it benefits Musk financially in other ways.) But they do show that the loss of advertising revenue will not be a direct problem.

Wired Magazine: Musk's purchase of Twitter exposes a minefield of privacy

User data and more for this social network will soon be at the mercy of the world's richest man. Are you worried?

Elon Musk struck a deal Monday to buy Twitter for about $44 billion and take the company private. In his initial comments on the move, Musk discussed a range of goals, from "making open-source algorithms to increase user trust" to addressing spam and "verifying all humans (clear water army robots)" There's no more information yet on how Musk will channel Twitter, but privacy and security proponents say the preliminary comments paint a mixed picture of where the social media giant might go under its new leadership and shed light on the risks of trusting platforms to protect our private information.

Unlike Facebook and other platforms that enforce "real-name" policies, Twitter largely allows people to use pseudonyms or remain anonymous, a practice that could change under Musk. In addition, Musk will soon be able to access all of His Twitter user data, including the content of ip addresses and direct messages. It's worth noting that Twitter's private messages aren't encrypted end-to-end, which means that whoever controls the platform can access that information. Proponents of end-to-end encryption have long emphasized that this protection not only protects users' data from all kinds of snooping, but also puts power on users for a long time, no matter when who owns the service.

"Elon Musk is now simply the King of Twitter. Evan Greer, deputy director of the digital rights group Fight for the Future, said: "Nothing can stop him from accessing your direct information or handing it over to the government – maybe the government of the country where Tesla is trying to do business." For example, some authoritarian governments are notorious for overseeing public speech and private communications, and their tech companies keep records of their users' identities, even if people are allowed to post using any one of the client apps. As rival super-billionaire Jeff Bezos highlighted in Monday's tweet, Musk's other company, Tesla, has significant business interests in many countries. At the same time, Twitter remains a thorn in the side of many governments.

Like other tech giants, Twitter has spent years building reporting systems, such as the number of requests it receives for government information or content that the law requires to be removed. Musk said transparency will be his priority on Twitter, but what areas he wants to focus on and his position on issues such as the government's request for user data remains unknown.

In general, digital rights advocates point out that open standards protect speech more effectively than closed ecosystems because they allow multiple organizations to offer interoperable versions of services from which users can choose. (Consider text messaging and email as two examples of such services.) In practice, though, users flock to relatively simple and easy-to-use services offered by platforms like Twitter. In recent years, the company has even launched its own exploratory program, the Blue Sky Project, to study how Twitter can be opened up as a standardized, interoperable platform rather than a single, closed service.

When Musk talks about "verifying all humans (non-troll robots)," he's probably referring to a plan to reduce spam, for example, by having users fill out captcha codes before tweeting to prove they're human. It's unclear how viable such a system is, but in theory, privacy and security advocates say it's a best-case scenario that could actually be useful. In the worst-case scenario, though, Musk argues is that Twitter will collect information about each user to internally confirm that they are an independent person, or worse, require users to have a Twitter account only in their legal capacity.

It's not about building rockets, and why Musk's Twitter acquisition could be bad for privacy

While Musk's long quest for Twitter is over, at least for him, the next chapter in Twitter's history and its hundreds of millions of users has only just begun.

The deal immediately raised concerns that Musk, a self-described "free speech absolutist," could turn the dial of content moderation back to where it was, potentially unraveling years of efforts to curb the unfettered spread of hate speech and misinformation. But experts were equally quick to warn that the $44 billion acquisition would take Twitter private at a time when even employees were unaware of the company's future, which could have implications for privacy.

In Musk's short 78-word statement, one of the many plans he proposed for Twitter has attracted the attention of the industry, that is, to open source the platform's algorithmic code and make it public. Musk claims that the change — which Twitter has been brewing for some time — will help boost trust in the platform, which has been facing the brunt of fake news and security incidents for years, including hackers hijacking high-profile Twitter accounts — even Musk's profile — to promote a cryptocurrency scam.

But cybersecurity experts worry that Musk's open-source vision for Twitter could make the platform more vulnerable to attackers.

Jamie Moles, senior technical manager at security firm ExtraHop, told the media: "Deciding to open this code could mean it will be adopted by other social platforms, advertisers and others who want to hone their user targeting." "Of course, as with any widely adopted open source, there are significant security implications. As we've seen in Log4Shell and Spring4Shell, vulnerabilities in widely used open source applications add value exponentially. Opening up its code may increase transparency for Twitter users, but it could also make Twitter a bigger target for attackers. "

Morse said Musk's plan to wage war on so-called spam account bots, which are used to spread malware and propagate political ideology, could yield "new technologies to improve the detection and identification of spam accounts, spam posts and other malicious intrusion attempts," he added. "This is likely to be a boon for security practitioners everywhere."

Professor Eerke Boiten, dean of the School of Computer Science and Informatics at De Montfort University in the UK, warned that algorithms that open Twitter could lead to malicious actors "game" algorithms, which could see people being treated differently according to their personal characteristics.

"Think, for example, about the external manipulation of Twitter's targeted advertising aspect, which was a worrying area of privacy even before it was manipulated," Boiten said. "In this way, it will also accelerate the arms race for new ways of playing and finding countermeasures."

Musk's brief statement leaves a lot of room for imagination. He did not say what his plan was for "certifying all humans." Some interpret it as a plan to expand Twitter's existing user verification system, or a plan to introduce a real-name policy that requires users to provide documentary evidence of their legal names. Digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation has expressed concerns about the human rights value of real-name policies on pseudonymous speech, and Musk may not have considered the impact that lack of anonymity could have on certain groups.

In a blog post, the EFF said: "Pseudonymization and anonymity are essential to protect users who may have opinions, identities, or interests that are inconsistent with those in power. For example, policies requiring real names on Facebook have been used to marginalize Native Americans; people who use traditional Irish, Indonesian, and Scottish names; Catholic clerics; transgender people; drag queens; and sex workers. If those in power are able to discover their true identities, political dissidents could be in grave danger."

The EFF also expressed concern about the continued lack of end-to-end encryption for Twitter's direct messages. The EFF added: "Concerns that new owners of the platform will be able to read this information are not unfounded.

Boiten also believes that Musk's crackdown on pseudonyms will be the most worrying aspect of Musk's takeover. "In many cases, anonymity is a prerequisite for privacy. "Once it is known that Twitter has authenticated its users, oppressive governments can demand authentication information from them, jeopardizing the large number of disruptive uses currently in these countries," he said. "I wonder how many anonymous Twitter accounts are currently run by Tesla employees — Elon Musk strictly follows his own rules — so potential Tesla whistleblowers or union members wouldn't safely allow themselves to be authenticated on Twitter."

Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a tweet Tuesday that Twitter is "more forward-looking than many competitors in trying to address false, deceptive and manipulative content," and while he said the company has "a lot of room for improvement," Warner said he hoped Musk would "work in good faith to preserve these necessary reforms and prevent regressions that are harmful to democracy."

For now, Musk's takeover bid for Twitter still needs to be approved by shareholders and regulators.

Will Musk put Twitter in conflict with global speech regulators?

What kind of collision will there be between the absolutism of free speech and digital regulation in Europe and beyond?

Source: Techcrunch

Elon Musk joked earlier this month that he hoped the acquisition of Twitter wouldn't cause him much pain. But the man, who describes himself as an "absolutist of free speech," may indeed cause pain to himself (and his wallet) if he puts the platform in conflict with the growing number of legislatures currently available for social media services around the world.

When it comes to digital rulemaking, the U.S. lags far behind regions like Europe. As a result, Musk may not have noticed at all that the group has just agreed on the details of the Digital Services Act (DSA). The bill is a major relaunch of platform rules aimed at harmonizing regulatory procedures to ensure the rapid elimination of illegal speech, including raising fines for so-called "very large online platforms" (also known as VLOPs; this classification may apply to Twitter) to 6 percent of global annual turnover.

After news of Musk's bid for Twitter, EU lawmakers were quick to point out the upcoming hard limits.

"The commission could impose a 6 percent global turnover fine on [non-compliant platforms]," stressed Paul Tang, a member of the European Parliament, discussing why he thinks the DSA will be able to rein in any more absolutist tendencies Musk may have.

"Given Twitter's current profit margins, that's a big problem — because the net margins are negative, and that's why he bought it in the first place, I think... It has no profit, and if it has a profit, it will also be cut off by a fine. So he really has to find a way to make it more profitable to make sure the company doesn't lose money."

Tang also noted that Musk's $43 billion bid for Twitter was largely financed through loans — rather than he cashed out tesla equity directly to fund the bid, meaning Musk wasn't as free to act on his own impulses as he had other times.

"He's in debt. He needs to pay his debts - his creditors ... If he buys Twitter with all his stake, then in a sense, he will have more room to maneuver. He can afford any loss he wants — in part, depending on Tesla's value. But he's in debt now, in this takeover, so he has to pay at least interest — so the company needs to be profitable. And even more than before. "

"Every time you don't comply with the rules, it's 6 percent. This will be a high price to pay. Ecclesiastes Gies, a member of the European Parliament, also believes that billionaires will see any fine from the DSA as the equivalent of a "parking ticket" that is taken off and bounced off.

In addition to imposing fines of up to 6 percent for violations, the Repeated non-compliance with the DSA by the Tweets company owned by Musk could result in a daily fine from the European Commission; prosecution of his non-compliance; and even orders a regional blockade of the service.

Section 41(3) of the Ordinance sets out the powers in case of repeated, serious breaches – based on the snippets of the final text we have seen (still awaiting publication) – including the ability to temporarily block access to a service for four weeks, and the possibility that the interim ban can be repeated a certain number of times, thereby extending for several months.

So even if Musk's wealth (and propensity) extends to regularly paying very large fines (up to hundreds of millions of dollars in terms of current Twitter revenues), he may be more cautious about taking "free speech" actions, which in fact limits Twitter's influence and leads to the service being blocked in the European Union — because he claims he bought it to defend it as an important forum for speech for humanity's "civilization." (Suppose he doesn't define it narrowly as "in the United States").

While the entire content of the DSA won't take effect until early 2024, the VLOPs rules will be implemented for a shorter period of time — 6 months — so the regime could be up and running for platforms like Twitter in early 2023.

This means that if Musk wants to — we can say — "figure out" to what extent he can push rhetorical absolutism within the EU, he won't be long before the commission and other regulators are empowered to live up to their democratic standards. (In Germany, there are already laws for platforms.) The country has been regulating hate speech on social media since 2017 – so the long-standing "joke" is that if you want a de-Naxified version of Twitter, you simply change the country to "Germany" in the settings and your Twitter feed will instantly become fascists-free. ）

The DSA imposes some specific obligations on VLOPs that may not be entirely of Musk's concern as he celebrates the addition of an expensive new member to his corporate portfolio (though still awaiting shareholder approval) — including requiring the platform to conduct a risk assessment related to the dissemination of illegal content; considering any negative impact on fundamental rights in Europe, such as privacy and freedom of expression. Action is then taken on the basis of these assessments, with "reasonable, effective and proportionate" measures to combat the specific systemic risks identified; all of which must be detailed in the "comprehensive" annual report, along with a range of other requirements.

Mathias Vermeulen, director of public policy at the digital rights agency AWO, predicted: "An 'Elonized' version of Twitter may not meet the requirements of Section 26-27 of the DSA." "This could result in fines (Musk doesn't care), but if repeated violations, it could result in Twitter being banned from use in the EU." That's when it's really fun. Will he change his ideal vision for Twitter in order to preserve the EU market? Or is he ready to give up because he's not seeing it as a business opportunity, but to 'protect America's free speech'? "

Meanwhile, the UK – now outside the EU bloc – has its own, customized "harm mitigation" social media legislation. The Online Safety Act, which is currently under consideration by the country's parliament, provides for higher fines (up to 10% of global turnover) and adds another penalty. Executives deemed not to have followed regulatory procedures risk imprisonment. (Or, to put it another way, mockery of regulators will not be tolerated; they are British).

Is Musk willing to go to jail for the supreme idea of free speech? Or did he simply avoid visiting Britain again – and instead put his local Twitter executives in jail and bear the consequences?

Even if he's willing to let his employees suffer in jail, Britain's draft legislation envisions regulators being able to block non-compliant services in the market — so, too, if Musk violates local speech rules, he will face limiting Twitter's global reach in exchange for restrictions on Twitter's speech.

"It's not a way to make money," Musk said earlier this month about his bid for Twitter. "My strong intuition is that having a public platform of maximum trust and broad inclusion is extremely important for the future of human civilization. I don't care about economic issues at all. "

"I don't think he quite understands how big the struggle he's facing or how complex freedom of speech is in practice." Paul Bernard, a professor of UK information technology law at the University of East Anglia, said: "It will be interesting observations! "。" The biggest risk (as ever) is that he doesn't understand that his own experience on Twitter is very different from what happens to other people. "

Elsewhere, a growing number of countries are enacting their own local restrictions and increasing operational risks for owners of speech fence platforms.

This includes a growing number of authoritarian (or authoritarian)regimes that are actively taking steps to censor the internet and restrict access to social media — such as Russia, Turkey, India, or Nigeria — where platforms that "don't comply with state regulations" may also face fines, service closures, police raids, and jail time for local executives.

"If a platform restricts its business to the United States with a specific and special First Amendment tradition, it may be able to shake off the absolutism of free speech." But most platforms have 90 percent or more users outside the U.S., and a growing number of governments around the world, both democratic and non-democratic, are increasingly wanting to influence what people see online and aren't allowed to see. This applies to the European Union. This obviously applies to some well-known authoritarian states. Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, professor of political communication at the University of Oxford and director of the Reuters Institute for Journalism, said: "This also applies to a number of other countries.

"Saying 'I support free speech' is at best a starting point for how private companies can respond to this problem. If you're wealthy enough, you might be able to soak up in some government fines for companies that refuse to do as they are asked in the name of free speech (or for other reasons). But in a growing number of cases, next steps include, for example, hunting down individual company employees (Indian police have raided local Twitter offices), forcing ISPs to restrain access to a platform (as the Turkish government did), or eventually blocking the platform altogether (as the Nigerian government did).

"So while in the U.S., a platform that does content moderation under a simplistic slogan will primarily face the fact that freedom of speech is more complex and obscure in practice than it is in theory, and that users and other clients (such as advertisers) see this clearly and expect companies to manage this complexity as clearly, consistently, and transparently as possible; in the rest of the world, every platform will — if it wants to do business — confronted with the fact that governments increasingly want to influence who can say, where and when."

"They (preferably through an independent judiciary and an independent regulator, and at worst directly through the executive branch), rather than individual operators or private companies, will want to decide what should and should not be free speech."

Everything Musk says or does suggests that his understanding of "freedom of speech" is not U.S.-centric. As a result, his understanding of the scope of speech restrictions that apply legally to Twitter is limited — depending on where the service is used in the world. And (of course!) Musk's prospect of owning Twitter can't change any actual law about speech — no matter how he makes a compelling statement that equates ownership with a defense of human civilization.

Moving away from the boundaries of illegal speech (a relatively clear definition), perhaps most obviously (and frustratingly), Musk's overly simplistic understanding of "free speech" could plunge Twitter users around the world into a "groundhog day" repeat — when the company's (U.S.-centric) carrier allowed the platform to bask in the anger of its worst users, calling itself the "Free Speech Wing of the Liberal Speech Party," while the victimized users were largely censored by the loudest bullies.

It feels like it wasn't so long ago (actually around 2018!). Jack Dorsey, Twitter's CEO and co-founder at the time, seemed to have a subtle epiphany about the need for Twitter to consider the "health of conversation" factor if it wanted others other than the Nazis to stick to its platform. This, in turn, has led to slow progress in the company's efforts to address toxicity issues and improve tools that users use to protect themselves from abuse. (And, most likely, a ban on "King of Twitter" Donald Trump.) )

Free speech absolutists like Musk — who are adept at using Twitter to bully their own targets — have the potential to knock all these hard-won jobs back to square one.

But, of course, if he really wants the world to hang out and talk in his "town square," that would be an extremely clever strategy.

Of course, Musk may also try to turn his bullying to international regulators. He has famously clashed with U.S. watchdogs — repeatedly mocking the SEC through Twitter (of course) — including a veiled insult to its three-letter abbreviation on Twitter. Or recently referred to it (or at least some of its staff in California) as "those bastards," referring to an investigation launched by the SEC when he tweeted that he wanted to take Tesla private.

Musk is visibly angry and upset about the SEC's regulation of his own rhetoric — he openly flouts a public body whose job is to oversee long-standing rules in areas such as insider trading — and that doesn't bode well for him to achieve frictionless ties with a long list of international watchdogs preparing to review his tenure on Twitter. And he may soon come into open conflict with these institutions on Twitter.

If he hasn't slammed these "bastards" on Twitter, it's probably because he doesn't yet know they exist – but that will change. (After all, EU commissioners have been educating Musk on Twitter, telling him how to "quickly" adapt to their "rules," as Insider Market Commissioner Thierry Breton told "Mr. Musk" earlier today...) Well said! )

Once the DSA comes into force, the European Commission will be responsible for overseeing the VLOPs – meaning the EU's executive body will be responsible for deciding whether the larger platforms violate the group's governance structure for dealing with illegal speech, and if so, will decide on appropriate penalties or other measures to encourage them to reset their approach.

Asked if there were any concerns about Musk owning Twitter — given his free speech "absolutist" agenda — the committee declined to comment on Twitter's change of ownership, or any separate (ongoing) business deal, but a spokesperson told us. The Committee will continue to monitor developments to ensure that once the DSA goes into force, Twitter, like all other relevant online platforms, will comply with the rules. "

What does Musk want to do with Twitter?

Musk has yet to spell out exactly what he intends to do with Twitter — other than to privatize the company with a big stroke of the pen and claim that under his leadership it will unleash its "enormous potential."

So far, what he's said has focused on a few areas — and freedom of speech seems to be his main concern.

In fact, after his bid to buy Twitter was accepted, the first two words in his emoji-filled victory tweet were "freedom of speech."

Although he also cited some functional ideas, such as saying he wanted to open up Twitter's algorithms "to increase trust." He also "beat spam bots" as part of his mission statement — which may explain the tweet reference to "verifying all humans" (which understandably worries privacy advocates).

In a TED interview earlier this month, Musk also responded to questions about why he wanted to buy Twitter before the sale deal was completed, he said. "I think it's very important to have an inclusive free speech scene."

He further referred to the platform as a "de facto city square."

Musk went on to say: "It's very important that people speak freely, both realistically and conceptually, to the extent permitted by law." "I think one of the things Twitter should do is open source the algorithm. And make changes to people's tweets — if they're highlighted or not — that action should be obvious so anyone can see that action has been taken. There is no 'behind the scenes' manipulation, either algorithmic or artificial. "

"It's important for the function of democracy, important for america's function as a free nation — and for many other countries — and actually for broader freedoms in the world than in the United States," he added. "So I think the more we can increase our trust in Twitter as a public platform, the less risk of civilization will be, so I do think it's going to be a bit painful."

Of course, what Musk means by free speech is vague. In a TED interview, he was asked directly what his self-described "absolutist" free speech stance means for content moderation on Twitter — the questioner asked a version, for example, does this mean that hate tweets have to flow?

"Obviously, Twitter or any forum is governed by the laws of the country in which it is located, so there are obviously some restrictions on freedom of expression in the United States." Musk responded that he sounds more measured than his enthusiastic, voicory image on Twitter (which illustrates the tone dilemma of digital speech versus speaking in person; that is, the words spoken in person, and all the associated vocal emotions, body language, and human presence, can sound very different when sent text and amplification to (possibly) millions or more global audiences through algorithms that don't understand human nuances and are good at trampling on context).

He added: "In my opinion, Twitter should match the laws of the country and there is a real obligation to do so." He then returned to his particular focus on the topic of social media "censorship." Invisible algorithms amplify and/or shadow silence – proprietary AI that affects freedom of propagation and is not subject to external censorship.

On this issue, he may actually find the same sentiment among European regulators and legislators – given that the just-concluded DSA requires VLOPs to provide users with "clear, accessible and easy-to-understand" information about the "main parameters" of the content ranking system (the regulation refers to these as "recommendation systems").

The regulation also requires VLOPs to provide users with ways to control these rankings and filter AI capabilities — for example, to enable users to alter the output they see and opt out of receiving anatomy-based content information.

Musk's vision of Twitter's artificial intelligence "on GitHub" for programmers to fiddle with is a bit like a version of a technology executive.

"It's unclear who made what changes where; having tweets mysteriously promoted and demoted without knowing what's going on; having a black box algorithm elevate something and not something else." He said in an interview with TED: "I think it could be quite dangerous. He hinted that his time on Twitter might focus more on the algorithm's content-breaking device — how platforms create or don't create "free ranges" — than on maximizing the extremes of expression that a single tweet can contain.

So, on the face of it, musk's concerns and the concerns of EU lawmakers in the DSA have some striking — perhaps surprising — ideological similarities.

He also said he might want to develop guidance that would rather keep speech than remove speech when it's in the gray zone between legal and illegal — and that's exactly where the danger lies, and could create a dynamic where we can see Musk giving a free pass to a host of horrific abuse trolls, destructive conspiracy theories and outright disinformation. And that, in turn, could put him back in conflict with European regulators.

But he also sounds quite thoughtful on the issue — suggesting that in the gray area where there is "a lot of controversy," it might be an appropriate measure to turn down the algorithm amplification. This seems far from absolutism.

"I think we're going to want to let the rhetoric exist when there's doubt." If it's a gray area, I'd say let Twitter exist, but obviously in a situation where there might be a lot of controversy, you wouldn't want to necessarily promote that tweet," he suggested. "I'm not saying I have all the answers, but I do think that we're reluctant to remove things, just very cautious about permanent bans." I think time constraints are better than permanent silence. "

"It wouldn't be perfect, but I think we just want to have the perception and reality that speech is as reasonable as possible," Musk added, outlining a position that might amount to "free speech doesn't equal freedom of contact" (so a tweet that affirms hate can be maintained, but that doesn't mean AI will give it any legs)." A good indicator of whether there's free speech is that people you don't like are allowed to say something you don't like. If that's the case, then we have freedom of speech. He added.

In terms of content, the EU's upcoming regulation focuses primarily on harmonizing procedures for dealing with explicitly illegal speech – it avoids setting normative obligations, such as disinformation, for more vague "potentially harmful but not really illegal" speech, as regional lawmakers are so worried about being accused of being a speech policeman.

Instead, the group has decided to rely on other mechanisms to deal with harms such as disinformation – such as a strengthened but still non-legally binding code of practice – in which platform signatories agree to "obligations and accountability" but do not face the established penalties if they fail to live up to their claims, in addition to the risk of being publicly named and shamed.

So if Musk decides to post a tsunami of disinformation on Twitter in Europe, the DSA may not do anything about it on paper.

Geese agrees that this is a "more complex" area for EU regulations to address. But she noted that VLOPs still have to conduct risk assessments, undergo independent reviews and audits, and provide platform data to researchers so that they can study the impact of disinformation — creating a superficial area for investigations where it is increasingly difficult for platforms not to respond constructively to the social harm events studied.

"My guess is that if Twitter goes crazy, funny Europeans will leave," she also suggested. "If it's seen as a disinformation platform, it's going to lose its influence." But the risk is real. "

"Do you really think his defense of free speech involves spreading false information?" Tang wanted to know Musk's position on unrestricted amplification of rhetoric such as conspiracy theories. "I'm not sure about that. I think he's been – what I see – rather vague or unclear about this, at least ... He was not very clear about the spread. "

Tang predicts that if Musk continues his idea of opening up Twitter's algorithms, it could be helpful, suggesting that Twitter is "basically built on trying to get a disagreement like other platforms because that's how people react" — providing more evidence for cases of how reformed content is disseminated by algorithms. "In that sense — this part of the plan — I think it's good, or at least interesting," he suggested.

Musk's other statement of "top priority" — the promise to kill spam on Twitter — looks positive in theory (no one likes spam, and defending spam on rhetoric is frail), but the main question here is exactly how he did it? His reference to "verifying all humans" seems worrisome because if he meant he would implement a real-name policy and/or require authentication with just one account, it would obviously do a great deal of damage to Twitter as a platform for free expression.

But, in discussing the issue, Bernal wondered if Musk might have a more technology-focused feature to wipe out spam and possibly lead to a positive outcome. "Does he mean real names and verified information, or is he referring to the use of artificial intelligence to detect robot-like behavior?" If he's referring to real-name systems, he's going to do huge damage to Twitter without even realizing what he's doing. If he means using artificial intelligence to detect robots, that could actually be a good thing," he suggested.

For a long time, it was suspected that Twitter had never really wanted to wipe out spam. Because identifying and eliminating all these fake accounts weakens their user numbers and undermines shareholder value. But if Musk takes the company private and really doesn't care about Twitter's financial situation, he might really have the ability to press the switch to wipe out junk information.

If that's his plan, Musk will once again approach the EU's vision of platform regulation, which he might imagine: Since the interim Code of Practice was first proposed in 2018, the EU has been trying to get platforms to agree to identify bots as part of a strategy to address disinformation.

Dorsey had a discussion around this topic. How funny would it be if Musk had to buy Twitter to actually do that?

Musk also talked about expanding Twitter's subscription business — which could also put him in a position to weed out junk ads...

But what about the edit button? Every (sane) person thinks it's a bad idea. But Musk has said many times that if he succeeds in owning Twitter, there will be this button.

Asked at a TED conference earlier this month — specifically about the risk of the edit button creating a new vector for disinformation by getting people to maliciously alter the meaning of their tweets after the fact — Musk has also managed to sound surprisingly measured and thoughtful there. "You can only have editing capabilities in a very short period of time – what you have to do when you re-edit is probably to zero out all retweets and favorites. However, I am open to all kinds of ideas. "

So, well, maybe Musk has been making a mockery of everyone's "absolutism."

The broader question for regulators is whether the world's richest people should be allowed to have a globally important speech platform that far outweighs its number of users in its ability to shape the news agenda. We asked the Commission whether it had proposed updating the Group's media ownership and concentration laws in light of the development of social media platforms – platforms that now play a key role in mediating information acquisition and amplifying speech. At the time of writing, the Committee's spokesperson had not yet found the answer.

Outside the U.S., Musk's vision of a rule-free Twitter would unleash violence and civil unrest

Source: Codastory

While political protest movements in many countries abroad have sprung up and political parties have spent countless resources to publicize their political intentions, Twitter has long struggled to eliminate, or at least curb, hate speech, incitement to violence and cyberbullying on its platforms.

If the company threw its content moderation rules out of its platform, embracing an absolute commitment to free speech, what would happen in countries prone to social unrest and community violence?

Musk wants to figure it out. The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX wrote in a recent acquisition bid that he believes Twitter's "potential is to become a platform for free speech around the world." Musk has promised to "unleash" that potential, which means he'll abandon the company's content moderation rules and simply let tweets flow.

Let's review the acquisition process: Musk bought a 9 percent stake in the company in mid-March, a figure that was only made public last week, prompting Twitter's leadership to offer him a board seat. Musk accepted the offer, but then came up with new ideas. Why not buy the entire company outright? The board chose to deploy a so-called "poison pill" strategy to effectively block Musk's acquisition.

Imagine what happens to Twitter after the world's richest man succeeds. Academic experts warn that an absolute free speech policy would turn the platform into a quagmire of hate speech, spam and pornography. Veteran tech commentators point out that Musk's ideas about content control were popular in the early days of the internet, and time has shown that they really don't work on scale. On the U.S. political spectrum, experts speculate whether this will pave the way for Donald Trump to return to the platform.

What does this mean for most Twitter users living outside the United States?

Nikhil Pahwa, a tech expert and founder of The Indian-focused tech policy publication Medianama based in New Delhi, said: "This simply doesn't work in a country like India. India is Twitter's third-largest market after the United States and Japan.

"The kind of rhetoric that Twitter promotes has had real-world consequences for us," Pahwa said. Our party is really, very good at understanding how algorithms work, how they create trends, how they make something shareable. What they are good at is basically fueling hatred. "

In recent years, India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and other hard-line Hindu nationalist groups have used Twitter alongside Facebook and WhatsApp as an important platform to promote their political intentions and sometimes incite violence against religious minorities, especially Muslims.

Pahwa said: "I think what we're in now is that we need to be more restrained with hate content, not less. I don't think Musk understands or cares about whether people in India will be divided or killed. "

While more than 20 million Indians regularly use Twitter, others have left or avoided the platform for these reasons. A female researcher who spoke to me who studies gender-based online harassment declined to be interviewed by this newspaper's reporter for fear that she would be attacked for it.

Twitter's policy prohibits hate speech, harassment and incitement to violence, but it has a poor track record of enforcing those rules, especially for non-English-language posts.

Mishi Choudhary, founder of the Software Freedom Legal Center, a technology policy group in New Delhi, said: "Everyone thinks they know how to do content moderation until it becomes their job"

She wrote in a message: "I'm not sure how [Musk] plans to address the proxy censorship required by countries like India."

The Modi government is known for pressuring the company to remove some posts and restore others. In 2021, officials updated India's IT rules and began requiring large foreign tech platforms to establish grievance procedures composed of local staff for content removal and related disputes. It took months, and police visits to Twitter's local offices, that the company complied.

Twitter is under similar pressure in sub-Saharan Africa, where it plays an important role in the national politics of Nigeria and Ethiopia, the region's biggest markets.

In Nigeria, Twitter became the digital origin of #EndSARS in 2020, a social movement protesting police brutality that has taken place online and in cities across the country.

"Twitter" created a special emoji for the "EndSARS" protests and also validated some of the major streams of information that facilitated the protests. Nwachukwu Egbunike, a media and communications scholar at The Transatlantic University in Lagos, said: "[Former CEO Jack Dorsey] himself raised some money for them through Bitcoin.

"The feeling of the government is that Twitter is really on the side of the protesters.

Less than a year later, the government banned Twitter altogether as administrators took a tweet issued by President Mohammed Buhari that contained a veiled threat to the Igbo, one of the country's largest ethnic groups.

This lasted seven months. When they lifted the ban, officials announced they had reached an agreement with Twitter, according to which the company would "recognize Nigerian law and national culture and history with respect" and hinted at a code of conduct designed to govern the relationship. The document was not made public.

"People have the impression that Twitter has conceded or undermined Nigeria's digital rights in order to understand the ban." "If this agreement is true and the Nigerian government has the power to take down Twitter, what about Nigerians?"

Egbunike's problem is a good one for Musk. Both the Nigerian and Indian governments have shown that if companies like Twitter want to remain accessible in their country, they need to be prepared to comply with censorship requirements and the ideas of any ruling party.

In theory, ordinary people can still speak freely online, but between such rules and the online influence of political parties and troll armies, the cost of doing so can be quite high.

Victims of violence incited on the platform pay the highest price. Endalk Chala, a professor of communications at Hamlin University and a former blogger, described Twitter's role in Ethiopia's ongoing civil conflict. Chala explained that Twitter has made some efforts to curb problematic rhetoric from pro-government voices, but different ethnic groups continue to promote violence and hate on the platform.

"On Twitter, if people from one ethnic linguistic group make fun of people from another ethnic linguistic group, and that kind of rhetoric can be seen by those who feel attacked and ridiculed, [members of the target group] are hurt," Chala said. "Now people die every day because of something like this".

"There's really bad content, there's English, Amharic and other Ethiopian languages. "Content moderation on Twitter is not perfect," he said.

What if, as Musk advocated, the company simply stopped trying to censor Ethiopia's remarks?

"I fully support freedom of speech," Chala said. "But if it's so chaotic right now, you can't imagine what would have happened without a review."