By Luis Diaz
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has acquired the social media giant Twitter for $44bn.
On April 14, Musk had made an offer to buy Twitter for $43bn. After negotiations, the deal went through on April 25.
Musk buying Twitter can be something that is in his favor, but not for everyone who is not the app. Freedom of Speech is something that is his top priority, but not in a way people think.
Freedom of Speech is something that hasn’t always been there for these giant social media apps. Comments or posts have been censored or taken down as a result of being too offensive. Now that Musk has acquired Twitter, he plans to push for “free speech.”
The way he is approaching “free speech” is protecting himself and his companies.
Free speech is a right everyone in this nation has, but that’s not the issue. The real issue is that “hate speech” and “attacks” get mixed up by society.
Free speech comes with more problems than solutions. By giving access to freedom of speech for everyone on the platform, the “hate speech” and “attacks” will just get worse on Twitter.
Malicious organizations such as terrorist groups or extremists will be able to harm people more than they already do.
Twitter is a double edged sword. This platform, if given too much freedom, can really cause some serious damage.
Twitter is too dangerous in its current state. Unnecessary comments consisiting of attacks toward certain groups can be found on the platform already. Having too much freedom gives users the ability to ruin someone’s life.
Having freedom of speech also comes with misinformation being spread and people actually believing it without having credibility behind it.
For instance, Ex-President Donald Trump was spreading false information about winning the second term against President Joe Biden.
Many people, especially his supporters, actually fell for it and believed him. Having things like that on the platform isn’t the best thing for Twitter.
The right thing to do for Twitter is to implement a system like Facebook’s where “hate speech” is taken down because it affects everyone around. Nowadays, society has a voice and in recent years, that voice has been heard more.
Movements like Me Too, Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community have really made people aware that they won’t let themselves be harassed or mistreated, especially not on a platform where 217 million people are active.
The change of ownership can be good for Twitter, but can fail when trying to force freedom of speech because it has a negative outcome. Getting rid of bots can be a huge step in the right direction and making changes to the interface for a more friendly and easy experience.
Many changes including a stronger policy on hate and attack would be very helpful and make everyone feel safe when using the app.
If Musk allows all these lies and hate to take over the platform, Twitter will just get messier and start losing people as a result of not having a type of security to use the platform.
Having freedom of speech is good when setting boundaries or limitations for those people who abuse it. If it’s implemented as a no holds barred for every user, that’s where the problems start.