Twitter conversation

I've been following this topic in my spare time, and was suprised by the news today. I also figured a large discussion could come from this. For those unaware: Elon Musk officially purchased Twitter today. (April 25th, 2022.)

As a huge fan of communication and linguistics, this has peeked my interest. He wants to return social media back to being in the spirit of free speech. I have to specify "spirit" as it's not a first amendment issue. Companies, including the now Elon Musk led Twitter, have the right to run their platform however they so choose. So this isn't about the First Amendment of the United States. It is, however, about people feeling like they do not have the ability to express themselves on the most popular platforms across the globe. Twitter has perhaps been the most censored of the major media companies; with YouTube not trailing much farther behind.

Twitter lets one side of the political spectrum practice all sorts of extremism while punishing even the most moderate of liberals for questioning certain things. It's a case of the vocal minority (10% of the democratic party.) essentially ruling the popular opinion. If one side is practicing the spread of radical messaging then both parties should have even amounts of toxic behavior allowed. Elon Musk seems to want to bring that back. Allowing the reasonable individuals to practice genuine political commentary while letting the vocal minority of the two sides squabble in the center of it all.

If he really goes on to essentially unmoderate Twitter, it could turn Twitter into a social media scrapyard. Malware, terrorism, illegal activity, world wide political extremism, etc. It could turn into that. But, on the other side of the same coin, if he does just focus on the speech side of things...reasonable people being able to say how they feep without being censored for disagreeing with advertisers...I think it could be a very good thing for international communication.

There is an unfortunate alternative to these two outcomes though. It could very well backfire. It could show us what happens when we let Neo-Nazis, Antifa, The Chinese Communist Party, The Taliban, The KKK, and other extremist groups run wild. No holds barred. It seems as if one side wants a social brawl where the otherside is beaten into submission while the other one wants total censorship of anything that that disagrees with corporate wokeness. (Again, both of these are spread by vocal minorities.)

I feel as if Twitter is going to be steady decline to an inevitable hellstorm. Hopefully the platform emerges at the end of said storm with somewhat decent discussion. Have the "battle" at first where everyone is acting insane and then as it calms down we end with reasonable commentary.

I'm not sure how things are going to pan out. Twitter could end up being any number of things at the end Musk's plan. What I hope it becomes is a place to reasonably discuss sensitive topics with -anyone-. I hope to have debates there similar to the ones I have with many of you. I don't want to see people censored for disagreeing with me just because it's slightly taboo.

I have a feeling it's just going to be a cesspool of a site, however.