Should Elon Musk create a new social media platform?

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This guy has already influenced the prices of stocks and crypto by just using Twitter. An example is when Elon Musk tweeted in November 2021 to ask his followers whether he should sell his 10% of Tesla stock or not — this made Tesla’s stock fall. Now, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission agreement, Musk’s tweets about Tesla will remain a valid subject for a government investigation. Also, Tesla will need to pay $40 million to investors who lost money due to his posts.

Taking that into account, Elon claims that Twitter is doing a bad job in promoting freedom of speech, which is one of the core ideas behind democracy. He tweeted about that in March, and finally asked his audience whether a new SM platform is needed, and finally stated that he is “giving a serious thought” to building a social media platform with an open-source algorithm, with minimized misinformation and propaganda and freedom of speech as a priority.

Well, there are already platforms like Rumble, Parler, and Gettr that want to discourage people from Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok. Even Donald Trump has opened his SM platform called “Truth Social”. But a new social media focused on fighting propaganda, on which everyone could share their opinion… Sounds utopic, right? One can easily say that they are going to create a platform for freedom of speech, but it might be extremely difficult to assure this and prevent it to be a base of malicious content. Also, platforms like this are considered to struggle with attracting new users, investors, and advertisers because of having users having extreme or highly politicized views.

On one hand, social media should be a place for sharing any kind of ideas and opinions freely. On the other hand, Elon’s Twitter activity often influences stuff from outside of Twitter (e.g., stocks or crypto). The effect of social media on the financial market and politics is serious and still not fully explored, so SM platforms reduce the risk of unknown influence by censoring the content of people like Elon or Trump.

The question remains unanswered — Should governments and platform owners limit content having effect on economics and politics, or should ideas and views be always accepted no matter what their influence is?

Sources:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-27/musk-gives-serious-thought-to-creating-social-media-platform

https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musk-giving-serious-thought-build-new-social-media-platform-2022-03-27/

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/08/tesla-slides-5percent-after-elon-musk-asks-twitter-if-he-should-sell-stock.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/28/elon-musk-says-hes-considering-building-a-new-social-media-platform.html

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5 thoughts on “Should Elon Musk create a new social media platform?

  1. Białczyk Kuba says:

    UPDATE: the day after I posted this article, Elon Musk purchased over 9% of Twitter’s share ? That makes him the biggest shareholder of Twitter. More info here:

    https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/04/investing/elon-musk-twitter-shares-stake/index.html

    The question is if this will make Twitter more open to the freedom of speech ?

  2. 47316-EX says:

    Well even though his words sometimes have a huge effect on economics and politics, I think a government or a platform owner shouldn’t put any restrictions on him, and I guess there always be another platform that he can express his opinion.

  3. Nedilenko Oleksandra says:

    The question at the end is very controversial, so for me it remains unanswered as well:) However, I’d like to comment on the general idea of new social media without propaganda. Do you think it’s really possible? Propaganda doesn’t surely need to be done by political or other activists – propaganda may be done by ordinary, brainwashed people (not gonna provide an example, we all now who is it in nowadays’ realities). So I don’t think that this new platform will achieve its goal (if it’s ever created). It is a good idea to have an open space not influenced by authorities, companies, etc, but propaganda…? No, to my mind, it’s almost impossible to get rid of it anywhere.

  4. 47413-EX says:

    The idea that the avant-garde elon musk could create a new social network is very interesting. This entrepreneur has already innovated in many fields such as the automotive and aerospace industries. We know that the social networking sector needs a revival and is now evolving under criticism and controversy. But we can ask ourselves if this social network will not be under the influence of the bias of the leader Elon Musk, like facebook or twitter.

  5. Kinastowski Kamil says:

    The internet has given people a voice that they never had before and social media has only amplified that. I think it’s a great thing that people are able to share their opinions freely, but at the same time, I see how it can be problematic when those opinions start to influence things like the stock market. It’s a tricky situation and I’m not sure what the best solution is.

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