Twitter Takeover

I have already mentioned that I teach Ethics of Communication (see my previous essay on the Oscar Slap here). Last week, just as we were wrapping up the semester by discussing Ethics of Communication Technology, life brought me another gift of an urgent topic for the debate: Should Elon Musk be allowed to buy Twitter? The topic was deliberately formulated in the passive voice because I wanted the students to consider who or what agency has the authority to facilitate or prevent the deal from happening.

We'll set aside Musk's failed attempt to get on the Twitter Board as the largest individual stock owner a couple of weeks before he made the purchase offer that the Board at first described as a "poison pill." After an agonizing couple of days, the Board decided to sell the platform to Musk for $44 billion. The decision was announced on Monday, April 25, and we had our ethics class debate on Wednesday, when the news was still fresh. The two teams did a pretty good job researching the topic and bringing into the analysis relevant ethical perspectives.

The team that was advocating for allowing Musk to buy Twitter was bringing up the same points that he and the conservatives brought up: that he would promote free speech and create a truly free digital town square driven by the desire to reflect reality and increase transparency of the platform. Many people, including current Twitter users, complain about Twitter moderation rules, shadow-banning and suppression of voices that are described as "unfair," "harmful," or "malicious" and exercised by unknown authority, usually understood as either a bad algorithm or "woke" moderators. The "pro-purchase" team thought the free speech position was completely in line with the utilitarian ethics: By shifting the platform away from quasi-public ownership of the Wall Street into private ownership of someone who is concerned with everyone's well-being, the greater good for the greatest number of people will be achieved. They also brought up the fact that Twitter's co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey endorsed Elon Musk as someone he trusts in his "mission to extend the light of consciousness."

The team "against the purchase" looked at the issue from two ethical perspectives: virtue ethics and egalitarianism/social justice. They stated that Musk was not a virtuous person in the original meaning of the word, due to his lack of understanding of public service and public utility. He probably looks at Twitter as an opportunity to expand his business ownership into one of the most influential social media platforms to promote his and his companies' business interests (they cited an interesting thread on Twitter about Tesla and state Dealership Laws), and perhaps just as a new plaything for a billionaire who can buy anything. Besides, someone who is referred to as "Mean Meme King" and posts memes about people he doesn't like (just before the Twitter purchase announcement, Musk circulated a meme comparing Bill Gates to a pregnant man emoji) can hardly be thought a virtuous person. From the egalitarian and social justice position, Twitter is a public utility platform that serves an important informational and educational function for the society. A billionaire who threatened to introduce subscription fees for Twitter users is definitely driven by the considerations of profit rather than maintaining and equal-access and equitable communication platform.

During the debate Q&A, some other issues were brought up, such as the power of the already established Big Media and Big Tech oligarchy. Musk's buying Twitter would limit the consumer choices even further. The thread below is a good illustration of the oligarchy and tendency to widen wealth inequality and narrow true free speech for everyone.

Another question that was brought up by the debate observers was the issue of mis- and disinformation on Twitter. The side that was defending the free speech rationale for the purchase took the absolutist position on this issue by stating that just like on any other media and information platform, mis- and disinformation will be rooted out and the truth will emerge in the process of free discussion. The other side was quick to point out that we have seen this fail during the 2016 and 2020 election cycles and one of the reasons why Twitter was such a much cleaner environment in the 2020 election was because the Board decided to ban political advertising. Also, unlimited free speech digital platforms with no editorial policy or justified moderation fuel and spread (albeit unintentionally) hate speech that may result into cyber-bullying and even suicides. I really liked the topical cartoon bellow.

In general, almost everyone in my class agreed that Twitter should stay in public, not private ownership. I was very pleased to see that my students understand the value of Twitter as a public utility platform that it is evolving to become. When I asked my students who had Twitter accounts how many of them would stay there if Musk started charging subscription fees, all of them said they'd immediately drop the platform. So Twitter may have the same fate as MySpace in 2005 when Murdoch's News Corp acquired it trying to secure its future in the expanding social media space.

Personally, I was upset with the news of Musk purchasing Twitter. I used to admire Elon Musk for his vision of where humanity needs to move for sustainable future. In one of his earlier public interviews, after he just sold PayPal and bought Tesla, he identified the following three priorities for future human development: (1) connectivity and free flow of information and money all over the globe; to achieve that goal, he created PayPal and StarLink, and I'm sure he sees Twitter purchase as a part of that plan as well; (2) renewable energy and environmentally friendly transportation with Tesla and HyperLoop as his flagship companies in this area; and (3) space exploration with SpaceX. I thought it was a noble and well-thought program, exactly what the humanity needed. I also admired him for liberal views and support of various liberal and democratic initiatives.

Over the years, however, Elon succumbed to the corrosive power of money and influence. I was quite upset to read the reports of him personally terminating and persecuting his former employees and bloggers who were critical of him. The leaks about Tesla's casual racism in the workplace were just as disturbing as his retaliatory actions against whistleblowers. His whole incident with the SEC over the famous "taking Tesla private" tweet was extremely concerning for me as a small Tesla shareholder. When he moved Tesla headquarters and giga-factory from California to Texas because he did not want to pay state taxes I thought it was a point of no-return for him to the red part of the political spectrum. And then of course the notorious "take the red pill" tweet gleefully caught by Ivanka Trump and shot down by the Matrix co-creator Lilly Wachowski. Even though Musk later said that Ivanka took his tweet too far in terms of political interpretation, it was too late. The liberals lost him, puzzled by his transformation from someone who voted for and supported Obama to someone who became anti-vaxx, anti-union, and pro-Trump. The right-wing MAGA enthusiasts embraced him. It is not coincidental that the MAGA folks were so happy about Musk buying Twitter hoping that he'd allow Trump back on the platform.

Recently, Musk tweeted a meme showing how the "woke" left is running away from him to the extreme, pulling the center away, thus forcing him to move to the right. If you look at the graph carefully, you will see that the figure marked as "me" (Elon Musk) is the true center point (a stable genius of this political Universe) in relation to which the spectrum stretches only on one end. As if the conservative right stays in place and we do not have far-right extremist groups like Oath Keepers, QAnon conspirators and various white supremacists masquerading as free speech and 2nd Amendment enthusiasts who are extremely energized and excited about Musk's purchase of Twitter.

Another recent Musk's tweet that stirred a lot of discussion was his idea of introducing subscription fees for Twitter accounts. As a private owner, he of course can charge for access, but that will undermine Twitter's role of a public utility. To calm people down, Musk tweeted this:

As a public access proponent, I strongly oppose this idea on several grounds. First, the government agencies are already funded by casual Twitter users aka taxpayers. If the government agencies are on Twitter, they should be posting information in the public interest or they should not be on Twitter at all. Charging them subscription, albeit discounted, will mean my taxpayer money will be used twice for the same purpose - to be informed by the government agencies that I'm already funding with my taxes. As for the commercial users, they are already paying for advertising on Twitter. If you are going to charge them subscription, you should not charge them for advertising because it is again double-charging for the same service. But advertising is the main source of revenue for Twitter and no subscription fees will ever substitute for that. They will only limit and shrink the number of subscription-paying users. Charging subscription fees rarely brings significant revenue for the media unless they bring valuable products of consistently high quality (ask Slate or Axios). When you are a billionaire who bought yourself an expensive digital plaything, expecting subscribers to bear the costs of operation is short-sighted, to say the least, and self-defeating in the long run. It also fuels people's frustration and reaffirms Musk's image of a Narcissist and petulent man-baby, as depicted in a viral cartoon below.

I doubt that Musk is really a Narcissist. He may be confused for one because he admittedly has Asperger's Syndrome and his social awkwardness and self-containment may be interpreted as Narcissistic while he himself believes that he is still an absolutely benevolent romantic who had formulated the three areas of urgent development for humanity some 20 odd years ago. His statement on free speech certainly reflects this idea and has a lot of promise, if all of his intentions are genuine:

I am, however, disturbed by some of his God-like behaviors, not the least of which is the desire to own one of the most powerful social media platforms in the world. I'm also not entirely convinced that Musk is not pulling the Trojan Horse on Twitter: even though Trump said he'd stay on Truth Social and not come back to Twitter, given the most recent SCOTUS turn on truth and earlier promises not to overrule Roe v. Wade I'm not sure any self-described conservative (and especially a confirmed conman like DJT) can be trusted.

Musk still has time to pull out of this bad deal. Since he used Tesla as a collateral for his Twitter purchase, Tesla shares plunged by over 12%, making the purchase even worse for him financially as he will have to get more funding (sell more Tesla shares?) to secure the deal. Tesla is his baby, so Musk may not like watching it bleed so much and ultimately cancel the deal, paying $1 billion in fines. However, Elon is also very stubborn and does not like to fail so he may stick it out. I often wonder how many times he regretted in his mind that the Twitter Board called his bluff and decided to sell. It's definitely a good fat deal for them, and it is becoming a poison pill for Musk with every day Tesla is bleeding its stock value.

In any case, I personally will stay on Twitter until Musk starts charging subscriptions. I'm definitely not there to feed his ego or line his pockets. To think of it, years ago I commissioned the painting below. I still don't regret it as I look back on the time when Musk was a romantic savior of humanity with fondness. He is not the first or the last one to succumb to the power of money and influence. But "Oh, Elon!," as his mother would say with love and disappointment at the same time.