It’s fairly common knowledge now that Elon Musk purchased Twitter. The world’s richest man is now the owner of a 500-million strong social media platform.
It’s been months since Musk has announced his plans, and during that time, he’s changed his mind several times. The news has been in a frenzy, with many outlets declaring that he would destroy the platform.
Well, they appear to have been right.
On October 27, 2022, the deal between Elon Musk and Twitter was finalized. The app immediately devolved into complete chaos.
Musk himself is no ray of sunshine on the platform, so it’s very unsurprising that his antics have poured out into the rest of Twitter. For starters, Musk tweeted a link to a conspiracy theory regarding the brutal attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband. Despite testimony from the perpetrator confessing that he wanted to threaten Pelosi to disclose the “truth” and harm her if she “lied,” Musk helped to spread a false and disrespectful claim that I would rather not mention here.
It’s no surprise, then, that Musk wants everyone to say whatever they want on Twitter - something Musk’s been doing already - and has already fired much of the staff tasked with removing inappropriate content. This, in turn, has lead to exactly what Elon always wanted - but it is having the opposite affect he expected.
Already, the use of the n-word has increased in use by 500%, and advertising. The use of abusive language regarding feminism and LGBTQ+ has also skyrocketed. Republican governors may be applauding the rise of “freedom of speech,” but in reality, all it is doing is making Twitter a more hateful place. Even Musk has realized those moderators there for a reason, and recently announced the creation of a “moderation council” to help address the issues.
The list of headaches goes on. Nearly as bad as the rise of hate speech on Twitter is Musk’s botched replacement of the “Twitter Blue” program. Twitter Blue was supposed to verify Twitter accounts that they were actual people or corporations - for example, if you’re looking for a celebrity on Twitter, if you found someone with the name and a blue checkmark beside it, you’d found them. It was a great way for Twitter to combat all the fake accounts and diminish their influence, replaced by the real deal.
Naturally, Musk did away with this.
This time, Musk’s issues were largely monetary. Even though Elon Musk is the richest man in the world, he didn’t buy Twitter outright. Instead, he took out massive loans, which would in turn require Twitter to pay $1 billion a year, to a grand total of $13 billion. Twitter has never been all that profitable, so Musk needed to brainstorm new ideas to get the money rolling in. His solution? Eliminate Twitter Blue, and make you pay for verification. Now, to have that blue checkmark on your account, you’ll need to pay a small sum each month. This plan failed on many, many levels.
Firstly, since anyone can become verified now, this means that an unlimited number of fake accounts can pose as anyone they want, and appear legitimate. I, for instance, could pay the money right now and become LeBron James. Then, I could subsequently inform the world that LeBron was moving permanently to a mountainous retreat with a fleet of alpacas. For a real world example, a fake account posing as the pharmaceutical business Eli Lilly tweeted that insulin would now be free. The fake post stayed around for hours, and in that time, the company’s stock dropped 4.45% percent. Nintendo posted an image of Mario making a rude gesture, and banana producer Chiquita announced they had overthrown the government of Brazil. Both of those were fake accounts, and yet they convinced real people they were legitimate. Frankly, with verification available for purchase, what’s even the point of verification? It’s worthy to point out that, in total, the payed verification will bring in a paltry $15 million, a mere fraction of the billions Musk needs.
Together, these issues have only worsened Musk’s woes. The Eli Lilly debacle caused the company to block all their advertising on Twitter, costing Musk practically as much money as payed verification made, and other companies have halted their ads. Companies like GM don’t want to be associated with the hateful and chaotic world Musk has created.
Perhaps Musk should have watched the warning signs, the constant stream of articles insisting the purchase was a bad idea.
Twitter might be the worst thing that ever happened to him.