The world’s richest man bought Twitter on Monday. Photo Reuters
The purchase of social network Twitter by Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, this week was one of the most talked about topics around the world, but so far there are more questions than answers about the future of the network. that it currently has it. 229 million users per dayaccording to their numbers.
Thousands of articles published in all languages question the power that certain individuals have in the social networks used by millions of people and the need or not to organize them for the general good. and warnings against “censorship”which according to Musk is excessive on Twitter.
The investment of $ 44 billion that Twitter’s purchase for Musk forced him to remove in just three days – from Tuesday to last Thursday – of 9.6 million shares in his electric vehicle company Tesla, which reported him $ 8,500 million , according to documents provided by the Stock Market Commission.
How to explain all these efforts of the richest man in the world -Forbes calculates his fortune at 246,000 million dollars- for a relatively small social networkand also in deficit, because there is always a deficit?
There are two keys: one, which has to do with deal.
Another, how badly the social network works: all its users have complained about the algorithm and the content Twitter shows them.
The economic leg: the banks
Wall Street, attentive to the Musk movement and its consequences. Photo by AFP
Yesterday, economic channel CNBC recounted Musk’s negotiations with major banks that helped him finance the operation and explained some of the proposals that the broken millionaire of South African origins have advanced, more as ideas than as solid and detailed promises.
Internally, Musk plans to reduce managers ’salaries, so high that last year they reached $ 630 million. (an increase of 33% compared to 2020), while not eliminating the use of layoffs within the group, according to other information promoted by Bloomberg.
As for the best way to “monetize” a hitherto free network – other than Twitter Blue’s paid service, which costs $ 2.99/month – Musk’s intentions were unclear after he tweeted and then erase that he wants to reduce reliance on the advertising network.
CNBC points out that one of the most likely projects will charge for tweets that contain important information or go viral, or those that include content from a website or a third party. verifiable, but Musk gave no further clues.
moderation and censorship
Twitter has an algorithm that shows the most views: no one understands it. Photo by AP
But if there’s one thing Musk hasn’t silenced, it’s in his crusade against supposed censorship on Twitter, as he calls – here supporting America’s libertarian rights – the policy of moderation imposed on the network to prevent the hate words.
An article in the Wall Street Journal today asks: “Of all the problems in the world, why Musk decided he could fix it on his own.? ”, and commented that a group of billionaires in the orbit of the radical right, some close to Trump, had a huge influence on Musk’s efforts to take over Twitter to lift the brakes on the network.
A few days ago Musk tweeted about the extreme right and extreme left, putting himself in a kind of progressive center, although last Thursday he hinted that the progressive “fanaticism”moving further to the left, ended up approaching him to the right.
On the rights of Americans, it’s a common idea that social networks are taken over by progressives who impose “woke” or politically correct content, always censoring conservative voices, and just yesterday the Wall Street Journal – always close to big capital- has published an article in which he details here entitled “Musk can fix Twitter.”
Now another New York Times article responded to it allegedly proving the opposite: citing a study conducted between April and August 2020, it states that network algorithms agree. made by amplifying the tweets of conservative politiciansmore than progressives, in seven different countries.
The New York Times itself gave voice yesterday to Frances Haugen, the executive who left Facebook to denounce its bad practices, saying that moderating content on a network never equals censorship — she gave the example of strictly regulated pharmaceutical advertising- and promoted that the United States follows the path of Europe to make algorithms more transparent and controllable.
Source: Clarin
