Elon Musk has reached an agreement with Twitter’s board of directors to buy the social platform at $54.20 a share, bringing its total value to regarding $44 billion, Twitter announced Monday in a statement.
Thus, the owner of the Tesla Group and the richest man in the world became the owner of the platform, which he considers “the public digital arena where topics vital to the future of humanity are discussed,” according to the statement.
Here’s a look at what some of Musk said he wants to change on Twitter, according to Axios:
Edit button
In a 2019 tweet, Musk noted the social media platform’s lack of an edit button for “when you really need it.”
At TED2022 this April, he said he wanted Twitter to have an “edit” button, where he believed the problems raised by critics might be resolved.
In the same month, Musk conducted a poll of his followers regarding whether they wanted an edit button, and regarding 74% of more than 4.4 million respondents voted yes.
It should be noted that Twitter confirmed following the survey that it was working on an edit button, pointing out that it did not get the idea from the survey.
long tweets
Musk also suggested allowing long tweets, commenting on a long tweet that month as well, saying, “The quickest thing I got from this story is that Twitter is way too late for long tweets!”
It is noteworthy that Twitter has a maximum number of characters of 280, following the company had increased this number from 140 characters in 2017.
spam bots
Musk described spam bots as the “single most annoying problem” on Twitter, the method used by automated “spam” senders.
“If our Twitter bid works, we’ll defeat the spam bots or we’ll die trying,” he tweeted in April.
open source algorithm
Musk expressed concern regarding the bias inherent in Twitter’s algorithm, which he said he would solve using an open source algorithm.
He tweeted in late March, “I’m concerned regarding actual bias in the Twitter algorithm having a huge impact on public discourse. How do we know what’s really going on?”
He also surveyed his followers to see if they support an open source algorithm, and regarding 83% of the more than 1.1 million respondents confirmed that they would.
European warnings to Elon Musk following the acquisition of the social networking site
Elon Musk has received warnings regarding the need to protect Twitter users from harmful content, and pledged to ease restrictions on content, which has raised concerns of rights groups regarding the increase in bullying and the spread of false news on the site.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that “regardless of the owner, social media sites are required to be responsible.”
The European Commission also alerted Musk to the duty to protect users of the site.
“Whether it’s a car company or a social media company, any organization operating in the European Union is obligated to respect our laws, regardless of their owners,” Thierry Bruton, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, wrote on Twitter.
