Elon Musk, the mind behind SpaceX and Tesla, has made some changes in the "electronic town square" after he acquired Twitter at the end of 2022. He exposed certain censorship mechanisms and revealed that certain units of Twitter were acting under the directives of intelligence services and government agencies. He also waged a war against bot accounts and disinformation.
The extent of his success so far is debatable. Twitter is not worse off than before. For instance, the censorship we witnessed during the presidential elections in the United States and the COVID-19 pandemic is no longer present. Perhaps most importantly, we know that Twitter management does not have a perspective serving the state apparatus or the policies of global corporations, which is highly valuable in terms of freedom of expression.
However, activities of fake accounts and organized attacks still persist. Often, organized groups determine the Trending Topics (TT), and when we examine the content of TTs, we see hashtags from bot and spam accounts rather than messages from real users.
Musk has recently been at the center of discussions regarding the restrictions he imposed on accessing the platform and viewing user content. Unverified accounts, those without a blue check mark, are limited to viewing 1,000 posts per day, while verified accounts obtained through subscription can access up to 10,000 pieces of content daily.
The tech mogul claims that this measure is temporary and implemented to identify disinformation and combat data scraping, which refers to automatic services like web scraping and artificial intelligence (AI) collecting publicly available data from a website. Twitter, being a "public" platform, makes data easily accessible.
Some critics accuse Musk of "monetizing data" due to practices such as subscriptions and charging for access to Twitter's API, which provides data. Musk defends himself by stating that as an investor and owner of Twitter, it needs to sustain itself economically and generate profits.
There are strong objections to his approach, with some arguing that Twitter now functions as a global public space and should be perceived more as a public service rather than a commercial company.
Ultimately, it is evident that Twitter, as a communication tool, carries public responsibilities that bind conventional media. However, this acceptance does not eliminate the question of how Twitter managed to survive without making any money before Musk came along.
Was Twitter a company burdened with so many losses for the sake of goodwill?
In my opinion, answering this question is important to move the idealistic debates about Twitter to a more realistic ground. For example, what was the reason for global companies, which cut their support for advertising on Twitter when Musk took over, not withholding their generous support from the old Twitter?
Was it because Musk showed proximity to former U.S. President Donald Trump, whose account was suspended, rather than the Democratic government in the U.S.? Or was it because, unlike former CEOs, he refused to censor scandalous news about President Joe Biden's son, Hunter?
Look, we've come a long way, I think.
Yes, before Musk, Twitter was, in a sense, subsidized by partners of the U.S. establishment in exchange for turning a blind eye to disinformation and creating a favorable environment. When it fell into Musk's hands, it was revealed that it was designed as an ideologically driven apparatus without commercial logic and sustainability, aimed at manipulation. I think that's the story.
And I still support Musk in this adventure. In fact, without hesitation, I even agreed to pay dues for my Twitter account that has had a blue tick for 10 years. Since, unlike the previous management, I believe that Musk is not trying to deceive me but rather is focused on maximizing profits.
Am I wrong, @jack?
