Elon Musk has fired the top leaders of Twitter after the $44 billion deal to acquire the social media company. Fox Business. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety were fired after Musk accused them of misleading him about the number of the bots on the platform. They were escorted from the building after being fired. The number of the bots on the platform had almost torpedoed the deal but Musk eventually went through with the sale. Musk cited the increasing polarization of the United States as a reason to purchase the platform and but warned that the platform would not become a free-for-all. Instead he hopes that it will be a platform where both sides can come together to discuss the issue.
Dear Twitter Advertisers pic.twitter.com/GMwHmInPAS
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022
My Comment:
So far on Twitter I have noticed no actual changes, but, to be fair, I haven't been on much today. It's also very early to expect everything to just change. It will take time for Musk to hire new people, fire the incompetents and then change what Twitter is doing. I am not expecting major changes in the short term.
I do think the Agrawal, Segal and Gadde did deserve to be fired. They did in fact lie about the number of bots on Twitter to Elon Musk and that kind of personal insult was never going to work out for them. And of course, they were the ones responsible for the banning practices that motivated Musk to buy out Twitter in the first place. Many people say it was the banning of The Babylon Bee, a Christian parody news site, that convinced Musk that things had to change in Twitter.
I don't think that this is the end of the firings at Twitter. Musk has already said he might fire up to 75% of the people working at Twitter. Twitter has always seemed fairly bloated and top heavy and it seems like it has a lot of dead weight. I am guessing the fat-trimming process will continue in the days and weeks ahead.
It's unclear exactly what happens next. I think the people that think that Musk is going to turn Twitter into the new version of Gab where you can freely use the N-word and rant about Jewish people are going to be very disappointed. That never seemed that realistic in the first place, after all, Gab doesn't worry that much about advertisers since they are largely donation and merchandise funded. Musk has to worry about advertisers and I bet he finds that kind of outright bigotry to be distasteful at best.
But I do think that some accounts that have been banned will be allowed back on while many of the algorithms will no longer be used to censor stories. This is a major win regardless. If the Hunter Biden story in 2020 had been allowed to trend there is a good chance that Donald Trump is president now instead of Joe Biden. The effect Twitter had on the 2020 election was so powerful that the 2024 election might go the other way just because of Musk not censoring right wing views.
Speaking of Donald Trump, I don't see him coming back. He's got a lot of money invested in Truth Social so I can't see him coming back to Twitter unless that venture fails. Right now Musk is his competitor. Same thing with Kanye West.
As for me personally, this is relief. Many of my views for this blog come from Twitter and I have eaten a suspension there before, for saying that Kyle Rittenhouse was a hero (which he was) before he was acquitted of all charges against him. I don't think the bot that caught me saying that will be there now and I think unless I do something really out of character or stupid, I won't be banned from Twitter now.
Finally, though I am happy Musk has bought Twitter, I don't think it will make him much in the way of money. Twitter has never really been profitable and unlike Facebook they have never really figured out how to monetize their content. I don't see how Musk changes this so I am guessing this venture will probably bleed him money, which will probably have to paid for from his other ventures.
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