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All mine:
Tesla boss
Elon Musk
likes to tweet - and now wants to take over the short message service in order to determine the rules of the game himself
Photo: OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP
Elon Musk
(50) has achieved his goal: he buys the short message service Twitter.
The entrepreneur, head of the US companies Tesla and SpaceX and the richest person in the world, has already made it clear on Twitter that he is not only pursuing economic goals: in various tweets over the past week, he has questioned whether on the short message service freedom of expression is given sufficient space.
According to NZZ, Musk said during a conference in Vancouver that the deal was not about economic gain, but about "freedom of expression in the digital space".
That makes you sit up and take notice: Musk is already one of the most respected and active users on Twitter.
83 million people follow what the multi-billionaire (according to "Forbes" Musk currently has assets of $ 265 billion) spreads on the short message service.
Again and again he has published controversial messages there - and given examples of the fact that wild insults and "hate speech" are also covered by freedom of expression for him.
In 2018, for example, Musk made famous his claim that he wanted to take his car company Tesla off the stock exchange and that the financing for such a transaction was secured ("funding secured").
This statement later turned out to be incorrect.
Musk got into trouble with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, had to pay a fine and lost his position as the head of Tesla's board of directors.
The entrepreneur is currently trying to get rid of a comparison that Musk made in connection with the SEC in 2019.
Other controversial posts from Musk can be found in rows.
In 2018, he referred to a diver who was tasked with rescuing several trapped boys from a cave in Thailand as a "pedo guy", which was publicly taken as a reference to the diver's possible sexual orientation.
At the beginning of the Corona crisis, Musk downplayed the dangers of Covid 19 disease and criticized the measures against the pandemic as "fascist".
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Attack by Musk:
Canada's Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau
Photo Credit: IMAGO/John Woods / IMAGO/ZUMA Press
The Tesla boss compared
Canadian Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau (50) to Adolf Hitler when Trudeau spoke out in favor of dissolving protests by truck drivers in Canada.
Musk later deleted the tweet.
In short: Elon Musk is undoubtedly one of those who make extensive use of the publication possibilities of the social network Twitter to a huge audience.
As far as is known, the Tesla boss personally has hardly been affected by restrictions on freedom of expression on the platform.
But that's exactly what seems to concern Musk.
It seems to be a thorn in his side that the social networks now have rules and filters according to which certain content is suppressed or provided with warnings.
This can be seen in various tweets and statements by the entrepreneur over the past few days.
Musk asked his followers in a survey at the end of March whether they felt Twitter was committed to the principle of free speech.
After more than two-thirds of the survey participants said no, Musk shortly afterwards asked what to do next - "Is a new platform needed?"
In the meantime, the Tesla boss has given the answer himself: In his opinion, possible problems can also be solved by revising the existing Twitter platform.
Among other things, Musk has already had a vote on whether Twitter users should be given the opportunity to edit posts that have already been published ("edit button").
However, the restrictions on sharing content on social media are no accident.
It is clear that the operators of such platforms must ensure that no laws are violated on their websites.
In addition, content that is controversial or misleading, as well as "fake news", always creates an appearance, especially if it is distributed by people or institutions with great influence and numerous "followers".
The best example is former US President
Donald Trump
(75), who was a regular producer of such questionable content on Twitter, Facebook and Co.
After Trump fans stormed the Capitol in Washington in early 2021, the president-elect was even banned from Twitter and other social platforms on the grounds that he glorified violence in the context of those events.
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New platform:
Ex-US President
Donald Trump
launches "Truth Social"
Photo: STEFANI REYNOLDS / AFP
Not least because of this, Trump is now trying to establish his own social medium under the label "Truth Social".
As the founder and owner, according to his calculations, he can also determine the rules and content on the platform.
Buy instead of start a new one
Elon Musk is probably pursuing such a thought when attempting to take over Twitter.
Equipped with the necessary financial resources - according to the latest reports, he has around 46.5 billion dollars available for the deal - Musk is not forced, like Trump, to start the fight against the established competition with a start-up.
Instead, Musk decided to bring one of the big players under his power without further ado.
A tech billionaire with power over an influential medium - there are already role models for this, and things have not always turned out well so far.
Jeff Bezos
(58), for example, acquired the renowned US newspaper "Washington Post" for 250 million dollars in 2013.
So far, nothing has become known about the direct influence of the Amazon founder and multi-billionaire on the content of the "Post".
However, Bezos later got into a mud fight with the then US President Trump.
The fact that the Amazon billionaire is behind the newspaper, which was one of the political upstart's most outspoken critics, played an important role in this.
Trump had withdrawn the accreditation of reporters from the Washington Post during the 2016 election campaign because they had reported too critically about him.
The newspaper reacted to this as one would expect from a newspaper that takes its work seriously: The editors assigned about a dozen journalists who from then on researched exclusively about Donald Trump and his environment.
In this way, the "Post" became the blocking spearhead of the Trump-critical media in the USA.
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Compromising photos:
Amazon founder
Jeff Bezos
with new partner
Lauren Sánchez
Photo: FRANCIS MASCARENHAS/ REUTERS
Donald Trump, on the other hand, had excellent contacts with
David Pecker
(70), the editor of the US gossip newspaper "National Enquirer".
Some time later, the newspaper came into possession of compromising photos of Bezos' secret lover at the time,
Lauren Sánchez
(52), a former presenter of the US broadcaster Fox.
With the pictures, the "Enquirer" allegedly put Bezos under so much pressure that he felt compelled to separate from his wife
MacKenzie Scott
(52) and make his affair with Sánchez public.
Mega scandal about Facebook
The example of Facebook, with founder and boss Mark Zuckerberg
(37) at the helm
, also shows the dangers of uncontrolled handling of data and content on social media .
Facebook has been criticized for years for subordinating everything to the pursuit of profit and economic success, including data security or the reliability and credibility of content.
The low point so far was the scandal surrounding Facebook and the British data analysis company Cambridge Analytica, which was uncovered in 2018 primarily by the "New York Times" and the British "Guardian".
As it became known at the time, Cambridge Analytica had previously obtained unauthorized data from up to 87 million Facebook users using a quiz app.
With this data, Cambridge Analytica created millions of user profiles and offered them to its customers for money, who could use them to target marketing and advertising on Facebook.
Facebook, for its part, is said to have found out about the events years before the disclosure without informing the affected users or the public.
Among the customers who used Cambridge Analytica's questionable services was the future US President Trump, who used Facebook to optimize his internet election campaign during his 2016 campaign.
Proponents of a UK exit from the European Union ("Brexit") also allegedly worked with Cambridge Analytica to achieve their goal.
Record fine for Facebook
Facebook came under considerable pressure as a result of the scandal.
Under the hashtag #DeleteFacebook, numerous – also prominent – users on social media turned against the platform.
US politics grilled founder and CEO Zuckerberg in Congress and in the House of Representatives in two consecutive, intensive surveys.
At the end of the meeting, there was broad agreement that greater control and regulation of large social media platforms was necessary - although it remained unclear what this should look like.
In 2019, the US Federal Trade Commission imposed a record fine of five billion dollars on Facebook.
In addition, the SEC was fined $100 million.
Should Elon Musk relax the rules for publishing content on the short message service after a Twitter takeover, he is treading on thin ice.
He can probably expect applause above all from those who oppose the establishment in politics and society and generally view traditional media more critically and cast doubt on them.
In addition to Trump, this also includes populist and right-wing protagonists such as Brexit champion
Nigel Farage (58) in Great Britain,
Marine Le Pen
(53)
, the recently failed presidential candidate in France, and representatives of the AfD in Germany.
On the other hand, Musk also made it clear a few days ago what fate he fears for Twitter if nothing changes.
Musk tweeted a ranking of the 10 most followed Twitter users (he's the 8th).
He wrote that most of these top accounts rarely tweet and bring little content to the platform.
Followed by the question, "Is Twitter dying?"