Musk is right about why Twitter matters so much
PremiumIt’s true that we cannot put a price on free speech and civilization. Capitalism may be at stake too. But a widely held Twitter is far more likely to be of help than one taken private
In the power of Big Tech, critics spy an Information Age version of an ‘industrial military complex’, with capitalism being warped this time by the reduced rivalry of network effects in online spaces. By financial data, Twitter is far too small to figure in the big league, but since a tweet can be mightier than a board, it punches well above its weight. Political run-ins have been inevitable. Its ejection of a former US president who used the platform to wage a trade war and rouse a mob caused a global stir, partly for the gall of it. While free speech debates got sparked, that move also shone a light on another aspect of US capital markets. As a widely held company, Twitter Inc’s policies are shaped by a broad group of stakeholders. Content moderation has been what that has spelt in recent years. But what happens when the world’s richest man, a critic who once webcast a meme that likened Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey and chief executive Parag Agrawal to Nazis, makes a pitch for full control?
Last week, Twitter shareholder Elon Musk—one of its two biggest with less than a tenth of its equity—offered to take the business private by buying others out at a price that would value it at $43 billion. Given his loose talk of 2018 on delisting Tesla, the offer was ascribed by some to the whimsy of wealth, even as dismay arose over an alleged Twitter ‘troll’ trying to snap it up. Determined not to be “held hostage" by Musk’s proposal, the firm fortified itself with a ‘poison pill’, by which if anyone were to acquire 15% of its stock, existing owners would get to buy additional shares cheaply just to steepen the cost of a takeover. Musk averred that his aim was not to enrich himself, but to secure “the future of civilization", no less, by securing free speech, which needed a public platform that’s “maximally trusted and broadly inclusive" in his words. Waving a banner for liberty may help him rally a section of Twitter users, having already stoked user dissent over a policy gag on hate speech and calls to violence. Yet, as a champion of free speech, Musk’s position is not a complete free for all. Apart from an edit option for users and full disclosure on how Twitter filters the posts that go out, his wish list includes spam accounts kept out. His ideas also find some favour among those who want the web decentralized again, with control of data given back to us. To that end, he has toyed with the idea of a blockchain model for social media. So has Dorsey.
Central control was identified as a danger right at the start of the digital revolution, notably by Apple’s iconic 1984 ad spot, long before we had internet monopolies. Today, it would be richly ironic if a billionaire were to acquire sole control of Twitter in the name of democracy and freedom. Even if Musk means well for civilization, the more diverse the platform’s ownership (and policy inputs), the likelier it will solve its problems of opaque intervention and evolve along a path that serves a worthy end. Concentrated ownership would not just be risky, it goes against the market formula of widely-fed economic success. As for free speech, what Musk’s play is supposed to be all about, Indian law will not let Twitter violate our limits anyway. Legal restrictions on hate speech exist in India for good reason and these need to be implemented across all platforms. In any context where lives are at risk, incendiary messages must necessarily be muzzled. On this point of principle, we could expect birds of a feather to flock together.