Elon & Twitter

There’s a lot of opinions going around Elon’s offer to buy Twitter but they all seem to congregate around the extremes, you either hate it or love it. There are a two points I haven’t seen anyone else mention so here we go.

Today, Twitter sucks — I don’t think anyone would argue that. Trolls, bots, and algorithmically-promoted content have become the price for whatever good social media brings. There have been many ideas shared to potentially improve Twitter (the service) but we’ve seen little in the way of improvements or even experiments. Elon has a track record of achieving the improbable/impossible but there’s no guarantee that repeats at Twitter. As I see it, the company needs to start experimenting — even if that means risking its monetizable daily active users (mDAU). Going private is not the only way for this to happen, neither is Elon getting involved, but something’s got to change. If this deal goes through, it will definitely bring a lot of change.

As for the “town square” argument, I think this requires more thought and discussion. The town square has, for a long time, been a physical and public space — on public property. Some people argue Twitter is the de facto town square now, seeing as more discourse happens online than in physical spaces. Something to consider though is the fact that Twitter (the service) is controlled by a corporation. This has always been true and Elon’s offer doesn’t change that. Sure, he may choose to mirror a government’s laws but it’s still privately owned and it could fork at any moment. If a true, digital town square is really the goal, then maybe it should be controlled by a United Nations agency, similar to the World Health Organization. Alternatively, a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), where each account holds a single voting share.

Regardless of what happens, I recommend making some popcorn and enjoying the show. 🍿