David Schwartz, the Chief Technical Officer of cryptocurrency company Ripple (XRP), took to Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) this week to share his thoughts on Elon Musk’s recent hostile takeover attempt of the influential social media platform.
Schwartz seems to imply that Musk’s real motivation for wanting to acquire Twitter is to gain control of the political conversation. The implication is that Twitter is a large part of it, and that many users rely on the platform to connect with others and their political views.
Schwartz’s argument suggests that by controlling Twitter, Musk would be able to control the narrative around politics, and potentially sway public opinion to give “better treatment to political speech that he favors” and “worse treatment to political speech” he does not support.
He's not trying to make Twitter a better place for freedom of speech though. He's trying push Twitter's moderation policy to give better treatment to political speech he favors and to give worse treatment to political speech he disfavors. 1/2
— 𝙳𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚍 𝚂𝚌𝚑𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚣 (@JoelKatz) April 19, 2022
It’s worth pointing out that Musk has stated that he believes that thought should be freely expressed on a social media platform, which he claims to be the reason behind his Twitter bid.
Still, while the majority of people on Twitter are in support of his attempt to take over the platform, skepticism on the motives remains. In fact, it’s not hard to imagine that the world’s richest man, a self-proclaimed free speech champion, would be interested in acquiring such a powerful tool for influencing public opinion.
Responding to a Musk tweet about a social media platform’s policies being good “if the most extreme 10% on left and right are equally unhappy,” Schwartz said that such policy would only benefit “unreasonable people,” while punishing reasonable ones on social media.
This is an incredibly bad policy that works absurdly poorly. It rewards unreasonable people and punishes reasonable people. And if there's one lesson to learn from economics, it's that people respond to incentives. 1/6 https://t.co/xF9zBCIoE2
— 𝙳𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚍 𝚂𝚌𝚑𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚣 (@JoelKatz) April 19, 2022
Schwartz also touched on Musk’s level of competence regarding moderation issues on social media, saying that there may be a lack of understanding about how to effectively moderate social media content on the part of the Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and SpaceX CEO.
It really looks like Musk has literally never spoken to anyone who has tangled with social media moderation problems at all and is just listing off the top of his head all the policies that sounds good to someone who does not understand the problem at all.
While it is still speculation, it could be that Musk’s true motives for wanting to take over Twitter are not entirely altruistic. He may be hoping to control the platform so that he can spread his message without interference.
However, this strategy could backfire if people become disillusioned with his social media model and stop following him.
Only time will tell how this power struggle will play out if Musk’s hostile takeover of the micro-blogging site succeeds.
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