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How will Elon Musk's political views impact Twitter?

From what I have read, it is pretty obvious that he is right-libertarian. His takes on economics, foreign policy and the culture war all put him firmly in that camp. Even his idea of the political centre (that includes himself) depicts the Democrats as the radical left.

I think Musk will ultimately struggle as a Twitter owner because the right-libertarian view of free-speech absolutism is naive, absurd and unrealistic. It can give you scope to complain about people but it's extremely hard to implement in practice unless you want Twitter to collapse into a pool of racism, misogyny and other types of hatred. I mean, more than Twitter actually is now. If he goes down this road, users and advertisers will bail, making Twitter even less profitable. Also, Musk's other businesses are international and he is likely to find his free-speech ethics tested when the Chinese are pissed off by someone's Tweet. There are so many minefields and he appears aware of none of them.

I once read him compliment Iain M Banks, the late (and great) socialist science fiction writer. Most of Bank's novels were set in a far-future utopian society called The Culture where there is no money, property or poverty. Ironically, he is precisely the sort of person that The Culture's 'Special Circumstances' division would see as a barrier to actual social progress. Musk would be happy in The Culture, only if he owned and controlled it.

Though clearly highly intelligent in some ways, Musk has made a schoolboy error. The narrative that he's bought into identifies a simple problem and provides a simple solution. I think he will find the reality pretty difficult.
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Ynotisay · M
I'm pretty confident in saying that Twitter, like Facebook, will lose a boat load of money and ultimately go the way of MySpace. I think it's the nature of the beast. There will always be something shiny and new in the world of social media. In the short term, I think it'll show that non-moderated platforms, if that's the goal, will only appeal to the dregs of society. Section 230 which revolves around culpability of social media platforms will continue to be challenged and adapted. Musk the Grifter is going to be on the hook at some point. And, like you said, if it's not through the law it'll be through revenue streams.
Burnley123 · 41-45, M
@Ynotisay Twitter has a bit of durability because all celebrities, journalists and politicians are on there. Nobody does what it does and it has a monopoly in a field built for one.

It has long lost to Facebook and Instagram but it still has its niche. That can be lost if Twitter becomes full of hatred. Maybe we will see a new social media platform that advertises itself as anti-hate speech. That would have a near-universal appeal and leave Twitter as a tiny rightwing echo chamber. I really want that to happen.
Ynotisay · M
@Burnley123 You might be right. But I read earlier that Reuters got a hold of an internal document showing the most active users have been leaving in droves for a while. And that while NSFW and crypto tweets are growing, news, sports and entertainment focused tweets are falling hard. That's where the advertisers want to be. So yeah. I see an echo chamber down the road too. Personally, I'd like to see all social media platforms implode, because I think they do more harm than good, but I'm realistic that it won't happen.