Implications of Musk’s Twitter Takeover

Leadership Now Members Share Opinions on Twitter Purchase

With the news that Elon Musk will purchase and privatize Twitter, there is widespread speculation about its impact on free speech and democracy. Will Musk’s track record of tech innovation create a more vibrant, transparent “de facto public town square” or will his focus on what he considers “free speech” open the door for more disinformation and extremism? We recently sat down with two LNP members who have a breadth of experience in tech and public policy, Katie Harbath, Founder and CEO of Anchor Change, and Nina Pustilnik, President of NP Media and Capital, to hear their perspectives.  

What’s your initial reaction to the news that Musk purchased Twitter? 

Katie: It’s been a real rollercoaster ride. Overall, Twitter has gone further than I would have on many of these issues including banning political and issue ads, permanently banning President Trump (versus a suspension) and their handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story. However, I also don’t think the answer is no content moderation, as Musk has suggested. To have a productive public square you need some guardrails to ensure it’s not just those who bully or harass who are heard. Moreover, it’s too simple to think you can just allow anything that is legal. Many countries’ laws can actually suppress opposition or minority voices. So which country’s laws does Musk plan to follow? At the same time, Musk is a visionary, and I wonder if maybe I’m just not thinking outside the box enough and he might do something so radical it actually works. 

Nina: Billionaires becoming media barons isn’t a new thing. History shows that billionaires want to own media outlets, and Twitter is now one of the leading global news sources. The main difference is, media barons always had editorial boards, as well as hundreds of professionally trained journalists who provided safeguards against disinformation. Elon has none of this; instead, he has an algorithm that is gamified to favor outrage and extremism.  

Expand on this a bit. Is Musk just another media baron trying to control the news cycle?  

Katie: I'd argue Elon's version of journalists and editorial boards are Twitter’s trust and safety teams. Even media barons sometimes overruled all their people; the question is, will he do so again here? Also, we shouldn’t assume all algorithms are gamified towards outrage and extremism. Each platform is different. For instance, more platforms are moving to recommending content like TikTok does. And that's not a place yet that has been tied to saying they are contributing to polarization. I think there's a lot of room for more nuance here.  

Nina: I don’t think trust and safety teams take the place of an editorial board because they aren’t trained in the same way. Also, Twitter content creators aren’t professional journalists, they’re primarily the general public. TikTok has supplanted Minecraft as a leisure platform, and Twitter has become the news broadcast of the world that has global scale and reach, so it’s comparing apples to oranges.  

What do you think about Elon’s justification of buying Twitter to protect free speech? 

Katie: I very much appreciate the value of free speech, and I do worry that some decisions by social media companies have gone too far in what they do or don’t allow. However, Musk is wrong to think that the company’s actions to date have been political in nature or done with the intention to hurt one party over the other. That’s not true. I also think he doesn’t realize how hard it is to define what it means to actually protect speech and how complex and hard content moderation is. From making the policies to enforcing them, this is really hard to do at a global scale. 

Nina: I don’t think Musk particularly understands how difficult content moderation is in the context of free speech on a global basis where you frequently have fascists and autocrats using social media to weaponize it against critics. I think the algorithm is gamified to perpetuate disinformation and the most outrageous content, and the danger is that, unlike other media outlets, it’s unregulated by any government agency like the FCC. Without content moderation on what’s now a global news outlet, who’s to say that if there were a Hitler today, he wouldn’t come out unchecked with a global microphone on Twitter where he could say certain populations are responsible for the downfall of society and we should all go get them?  

Do you think there are any positives that will come out of this takeover? 

Katie: Musk is a visionary. Perhaps he will make some bold changes no one else dared to or thought of that could actually give us new ideas on how to tackle these problems.

Nina: I think Elon is one of the greatest innovators our world has ever known. It’s possible that with Twitter he innovates around data transparency to make the algorithm more transparent to expose disinformation, and when free speech and the unveiling of disinformation happen at the same time, media literacy can win. I also think Musk could change up the business model. Some are saying he could make it a subscription-based platform which should result in it being much more responsible than advertising-based. Targeted ads that spread disinformation are dangerous; whereas I think you’re more likely to get responsible content players with subscriptions.   

How do you think this will impact democracy as a whole? 

Katie: My concern is more about how we continue to have a concentration of these platforms owned by individuals who can’t be held accountable by anyone. To have such influence with no checks and balances isn’t a democracy. That’s one of the main issues I think we need to solve to ensure that we have a world where success isn’t about which party wins or loses, but that we can respectfully disagree and still find common ground to improve our lives. 

Nina: We’ve already seen autocrats across the world use social media as a tool to spread disinformation and weaponize their critics, for instance in Myanmar, the Philippines and Somalia. I think without a system of checks and balances in place, democracy around the world is at risk. 

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