Elon Musk’s looming Twitter takeover has triggered warnings on the left that under his leadership the platform will be flooded with hate speech and misinformation, especially ahead of coming election cycles.
Musk hasn’t provided a detailed picture of the version of Twitter he plans to run, but he’s foreshadowed creating a platform focused on what he deems “free speech,” meaning there would be less content moderation and a strong likelihood of former President Trump regaining access to his once favored account.
With the deal barreling ahead after Musk agreed to follow through on his purchase of the company and a judge halted the trial in Twitter’s lawsuit against the billionaire, those changes could be fast approaching — and they have critics worried.
“Even if you don’t use Twitter, this is going to affect you,” Angelo Carusone, president of the left-leaning watchdog group Media Matters, told The Hill.
He likened the potential Musk acquisition of Twitter to when Fox News launched more than two decades ago, offering an alternative to balance what its founders viewed as a media landscape that catered to liberals.
“That’s what Fox became — and it had a profound distorting effect on the news media, on our society. And if you look at what Musk says about social media, we are in the same moment, just updated 30 years later,” Carusone said.
“[Musk] sees Twitter, and the policies that he wants to put in place and the way that he wants to use the platform, as a way to balance out those other social networks,” he added.
The changes Musk could make at Twitter are “going to start to reshape and influence” how other platforms interact with disinformation, extremism, harassment and abuse, he said.
The billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO came to an agreement with Twitter to buy the company for $44 billion in April, but over the summer he backed out of the deal and accused Twitter of not being forthcoming with information about spam bots on the platform. Twitter denied the allegations and sued Musk to hold him accountable for his agreement.
This week Musk said he would, again, agree to his offer and tried to get the case dismissed. Twitter is still pushing for its trial against Musk, but a judge halted the case and gave Musk until Oct. 28 to close the deal or face a November trial date.
One constant throughout the five-month process has been Musk’s pledge to embrace his vision of free speech, one that appears to be in line with the lax content moderation measures Republicans have been advocating for.
“I’m not doing Twitter for the money. It’s not like I’m trying to buy some yacht and I can’t afford it. I don’t own any boats. But I think it’s important that people have a maximally trusted and inclusive means of exchanging ideas and that it should be as trusted and transparent as possible,” Musk, who has previously…
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