The Liberation of the little blue bird by Elon Musk

Twitter is the most difficult social media platform in the main league. I am on the 3rd trial before I gave up on it. Yes, for two good times, I have deleted my accounts because I struggled with it. On the 3rd voyage, it has been weeks since I logged in.

First, this product does not allow you to build your points, in the academic way. And when you try to break them, you create a mini thesis for the readers. Then, the worst part: inability to edit posts.

But Twitter has been getting away with those issues because it is the best ecosystem to break news. Unfortunately, many of us are not in the business of breaking news; we prefer to analyze broken ones!

But help seems to be on the horizon. The little blue bird is flying to the generation’s finest innovator. People, this is the age of Mustter, a great fusion of Musk and Twitter. It promises to be amazing for the bird because Elon Musk wants to bring a liberation of “free speech”.

Twitter’s board has accepted Elon Musk’s offer to buy the social media platform for $44 billion and take it private, in what could be one of the biggest-ever leveraged buyouts of a publicly-listed company. It’s a dramatic turn of events: When the Tesla CEO unveiled his unsolicited bid 11 days ago, the social media platform appeared certain to reject it, even adopting a “poison pill” defense to ward off a hostile takeover. But Twitter started to warm up to the offer after the billionaire disclosed that he’d secured $46.5 billion in financing. About half of that financing is bank debt, the rest is cash pledged by Musk himself. Musk says he wants to “transform” Twitter into a “platform for free speech around the globe.” (LinkedIn News)

People, Musk is peerless but any promise of a censor-less digital ecosystem will not work. I have made my point before: “Elon Musk is brilliant but there is one thing he cannot achieve: a zero-censorship social media platform”.

It is a big irony: without moderation and censorship, many will lose their “freedom” to tweet. Why? On LinkedIn, if they do not have a blocking feature, I would have left. But with that blocking feature, I have put many people where they belong. They come to cause confusions and bully; we block them to have the “freedom” to discuss. I am not sure how Musk will solve that by taking Twitter private.

Of course, it does not matter when you have $250 billion in the personal balance sheet. At that level, even $44 billion could seem like a good video game.

Twitter is not making money. Unless Musk brings subscription plans, not sure how the outcome will change. It is very hard to make money on text-based products in this age of mobile. Check WhatsApp, check Twitter; their core products are text-based. In those products, you are engaged to use them unlike photo- or video-based products where you relax to consume them, making it possible for you to make time for adverts. Twitter’s challenge is native. But hey, Elon Musk builds rockets; Twitter problem is an earthly one.

Comment on LinkedIn Feed

Comment 1: Elon went on to once again test his grit and weigh his balls by going after a public company, which has served as a major communication channel for individuals, businesses and politicians and he succeeds as usual, growing even bigger balls while doing it.

However, I am not personally confident He will achieve all he is set out to achieve with free speech, Twitter still has to operate within a sovereign just like Ndubuisi Ekekwe alluded to, and free speech many times comes with its own baggage of “bad business”. I am also not confident it is one of the wise business decisions Elon will make in his lifetime.

But then again, who am I to question the decision of a Man of many landmarks, a Man who revolutionized and commercialised space travel, and a Man who has $250Bn to his Name.

Congrat to Elon and his team of advisors.

Comment 2: In my opinion, free speech is an illusion. What we have around the world are different levels of permission of speech. Some countries have higher levels of permission than others.

Apart from that, an open system where anyone can say anything is not possible. People will get hurt and lives will be destroyed. The so-called freedom of speech will suppress the freedom of others.

Eventually, the government will regulate social media and everyone will blame the government for denial of “freedom of speech”

My Response: We will be waiting to see how he will manage the ecosystem when one terrorist group posts that it is looking for fighters. As you said “free speech is an illusion” at all levels.

Another comment on 2: Ndubuisi Ekekwe If a ‘terrorist’ group can recruit fighters, the ‘terrorist’ group is just preaching to their choir. The question becomes why does the audience exist? Banning them increases the barrier to recruit, but doesnt solve the problem, it just delays it.

My Response to that: Good point. But there are many stacks in everything – the generation, distribution, etc. You may not like to be sued for making your platform a den for bad people to play games. Imagine if you allow your house as a place for drug peddlers to share their goods. Society will not excuse you if you do not make efforts to stop that by locking your doors and making sure they do not have access.

Comment 3: I’ve been reviewing this whole Twitter acquisition by Elon. Trying to make Twitter 100% uncensored could be disastrous. Extremists will always abuse such privileges. Free speech for all, trouble for some. And also, Musk is beginning to gain so much influence as an individual, he’s leading the game here on earth and over in space. Tesla and SpaceX, not to talk of Neuralink, Dogecoin and The Boring Company. Now he has added Twitter to the list. I feel there should be regulations to privatization. Musk will become a demigod. Someday we’d wake up and realized we living in Elon’s world not ours. Watch the titans play.

Elon Musk Is Considering Starting His Own Social Media Platform

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