The richest man in the world now owns Twitter. Elon Musk is the decision maker and it looks like he hasn’t wasted a single minute. Annenberg Radio’s Eric Yeh has the story.
You see tons of people today sitting or walking around with their heads down buried in their phones. Then, you’ll occasionally hear, typing, clicking, ding, and a bird whistle. What do these sounds have in common? Twitter. With Elon Musk officially acquiring Twitter, his ownership raises many different reactions about how the social media platform will be run in the future.
Clayton Owens is a real estate development major at USC Price. He says Musk is the right guy to run Twitter.
CLAYTON OWENS: I mean, I think Elon’s a smart guy, so I would think that it’s a beneficial thing for Twitter because I feel like it has died down since it first came out with Instagram and now like BeReal taking over, TikToks, stuff like that. But I mean, Elon Musk is one of the most smartest people in the world. So I would think that it’s in good hands.
Musk grabbed Twitter after months of back and forth on whether his 44 billion dollar deal would go through.
But second year law student Adam Burch objects to the new owner.
ADAM BURCH: I’m not a huge fan of Elon Musk. In the past, he has shown a willingness to engage in conspiracy theories as well as the proliferation of verifiably false media content on social media platforms.
On day three of his owning Twitter, Musk retweeted an unproven allegation that there might be more to the story of the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband. He later deleted the tweet. Law student Adam Burch says we have to be careful with free speech.
ADAM BURCH: While I respect his viewpoint that places like Facebook and Twitter should be a public square where anybody could express their ideas, I also think that it’s a fraught position because social media companies have such influence over people that the spread of disinformation is so powerful that we’ve seen in the last few years that, you know, a sort of naive libertarian viewpoint like that could lead to serious damage. You know. Psychologically on an individual level as well as, you know, the erosion of critical thinking and democratic principles in the macro.
Musk has said he plans to do away with permanent bans on Twitter. Since taking over, he tweeted that Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints.
We asked a small group of USC students if they’d stop using Twitter now that Elon Musk owns it or change their use of the platform in any way. Not a single student was planning any changes at all! They say they don’t care who owns Twitter. But maybe they should, says Communications Law Professor at USC Annenberg, Michael Overing.
MICHAEL OVERING: The fact that he let go, all of the employees that he wanted to let go, the fact that he is trying to now revamp. But all of that just says, well, that’s free enterprise in the United States. Does it mean that people are going to agree with what he does? Absolutely not. There’s just no way of knowing at this moment when we’ve only had three days to know exactly where the platform is going to go and whether or not it’s going to continue to have relevance even.
That depends on whether you and I and all of us believe, as Musk said, that the bird is free and we continue to use his platform for our communications.