Table of Contents
Introduction
With Elon Musk all set to buy Twitter, there had been a lot of chaos in everyone’s mind. 1st- how did he manage to get a funding of 44 billion dollars. It’s like, one fine morning, he went to the grocery store, and instead of buying milk, he chose to buy Twitter. 2nd- will there be any changes in Twitter; if yes, then what?
How Musk is going to buy Twitter?
Musk assembled $46.5 billion to fund his Twitter takeover, with his assets backing two-thirds of that amount. Musk’s portion includes a giant $12.5 billion margin loan secured by his equity stake in Tesla Inc. The remainder comes from bank financing secured by Twitter’s assets, a classic leveraged buyout arrangement.
Elon Musk’s Twitter deal: Five changes expected at the platform
1. Free Speech and Content Moderation
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Elon once tweeted.
Content moderation on Twitter has always bugged Musk, and has called for relaxing Twitter’s content restrictions and described a platform free from content moderation. And, rumours has it that it is one of the reason for acquiring Twitter.
2. Introduction of Edit Button
Twitter has mentioned before that they are working on introducing an edit button that will allow users to edit their tweets after posting without losing their retweets and comments.
But the only glitch is how to implement it while preventing its abuse, such as changing statements after others have retweeted or endorsed them. A simple solution would be to track changes by creating a log of edits, which can be viewed by people, similar to what Facebook and Slack do.
3. Twitter’s algorithm should be open-source
Algorithms, or code that determines how tweets are prioritized, will become “open source” – meaning- that anyone can view and improve them.
Among other things, Musk claims that this will prevent “behind the scenes manipulation,” such as fuelling massive foreign propaganda, for which Facebook has been accused, during former US President Donald Trump’s campaign.
Some analysts, however, believe Musk’s proposal oversimplifies how public data works and raises serious privacy concerns.
4. Tackling Cryptocurrency scams
Musk said a top priority would be eliminating “the spam and scam bots and the bot armies that are on Twitter”.
The proposed solution is to authenticate “all real humans” or to have accounts overtly linked to other personal identifiers, whether it be a phone number, an email address, or a photo.
Billy Markus, a co-founder of Dogecoin, has complained to Twitter about the platform’s flood of giveaway crypto scams, where fake Twitter handles impersonate prominent figures in the crypto market.
Dogecoin stock prices spiked after news of Twitter’s deal with Musk, who has advocated the cryptocurrency and even claimed to be the “Dogefather.” So, that’s going to change!
5. Trump’s Return
President Joe Biden’s administration has expressed concerns over Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, which will allow Trump and other Republican operatives who were banned from Twitter to rejoin the site.
Trump was banned from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat following the US Capitol riots in 2021. His posts were deemed inflammatory, and Twitter had warned of “the risk of further incitement of violence”.
What do you think will happen if Trump makes a return on Twitter?
These are the 5 major changes we can expect to change. And only time will tell what is coming next. As we all want to know, how will Twitter earn money if there’s no algorithm to push ads? How will it survive if it doesn’t earn money? Will Parag Agrawal, the pride of WhatsApp University, survive this overhaul? Will Elon turn Twitter HQ into a Dharamshala?
All we can do is wait and watch and hope for the best!
