The world’s richest man, who also may be the world’s biggest troll, Elon Musk, has come out swinging against Twitter despite being an avid user of the platform.
Musk, who has nearly 80 million Twitter followers, is making noises about building a new social media platform of his own, citing concerns about “free speech principles.”
Musk is always active on Twitter.
Whether he’s doing borderline heroic stuff or just being a big ol’ troll , Musk has used Twitter as his personal sounding board ever since joining the service way back in 2009. His only other social media account, on Instagram, has been made private.
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Recently, Musk started a poll.
With little lead-up, he asked a fairly loaded question of his Twitter followers. The majority of them went the way Musk’s leading question led them, saying that Twitter doesn’t ‘rigorously adhere’ to the principle of free speech.
Is…is that a threat?
Musk quickly followed up with a response to his poll, warning Twitter that users should vote ‘carefully’ on his seemingly inconsequential poll.
If you’ve ever wondered whether your voice matters in the grand scheme of things, it absolutely does — especially when responding to a Twitter poll made up by Elon Musk.
His thought experiment continued.
Seeing Twitter as a grave threat to democracy, Musk fired off additional tweets the next day.
Twitter, the apparent enemy of free speech, has yet to delete or modify any of Musk’s free speech on their platform.
I don’t know, Elon. Why don’t you tell us?
Musk’s cryptic diatribe kept rolling along, asking if the world needs a new social media platform, one that adheres to the fundamentals of democracy by, uh, allowing hate speech, one supposes.
A user asked him a question.
With tens of millions of followers, it’s a near certainty that one of them would eventually ask a question that gave Musk an opening to unveil his grand scheme. Here is that question.
Are we going to see Musk disrupt the social media space?
Musk has made headlines with his wild inventions — reusable rockets, electric cars, subterranean tunnels and flamethrowers. Creating Twitter 2.0, a safe space for misinformation, pales in comparison to some of his other initiatives.
He offered no rationale for his rant.
If Musk had been banned or suspended from Twitter for a tweet, his angle would make some sense. But to the best of anyone’s knowledge, Twitter has never punished Musk for any of his thousands of tweets.
New social media platforms? It’s been done.
While newcomers to the space can thrive — just look at TikTok — “free speech” alternatives to Twitter are generally dead on arrival.
Former president Donald Trump launched something called Truth Social a few months back. It was a huge flop, and even Trump himself has yet to issue a single message on the platform.
Not to be done, Mike Lindell — y’know, the MyPillow guy — rolled out his own platform, Frank Speech, which is similarly doing poorly.
What will Elon’s next move be?
Even diehard fans of the Tesla founder must be growing tired of his shtick by now. Musk is angry at Twitter, that much is clear, but why? Are fans supposed to be excited about the theoretical possibility of Musk launching the next Twitter? It’s hard to say, but Musk’s Twitter account will continue to be must-see content.