Good article here:
I use twitter to follow some particular medical, covid, International Relations and scientific stuff and provided you are selective with your sources it is a good jumping off point for educated opinion. Itâs probably most widely used in a positive way in academic circles.
Musk buying twitter is a disaster. He is an A grade narcissist with a very thin skin - just look at his outrageous slur on the cave diver who criticised his stupid offer of a sub that couldnât possibly rescue those trapped in Tham Luang. I can imagine his definition of âfree speechâ will include unfettered reign to tweet hateful right wing bile but not criticism of preferred corporate entities or Musk himself. I also wonder whether he has broader political ambitions for it - heâs already successfully used tweets to enrich himself by moving markets and I could certainly see him thinking he could do likewise when it comes to shaping political debate especially where it overlaps his corporate interest. Not to mention the twitter user data which would also be strengthened by a so called push to end bots by requiring âhuman authenticationâ (ie storing lots of ID on users).
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It is the latest in a trend of billionaires buying up the media we consume, and as such, it has to be considered as worrying.
Musk is a free speech absolutist. At least that is what he claims. We will see if it holds true if something happens on his Twitter that he doesnât like.
Still, what does it mean? More misinformation? Likely. And it really doesnât feel as though we need more misdirected people in the world right now. There will also be less accountability, so for example, there was a nasty conspiracy gaining ground that Bill Gates was behind the covid vaccines, as he was trying to get a chip inserted into everyone. The Twitter algorithms helped to downgrade this untruth, but in the new reality, in Muskâs absolute free speech world, I can see that sort of stuff taking hold even more. Letâs factor in that he doesnât like Bill Gates for betting against Tesla too, and take it from there.
I am against this.
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He isnt though and we already know that. Like most who take the time to rail against a lack of free speech (typically against non-government institutions) what he actually cares about is being able to control speech. He rails against ideas that are suppressed - but only out of principal of course, he doesnât believe black people are inherently criminal itâs just a dangerous path to allow a private company to refuse to platform such ideas - while using all the tools available to him to shut down speech he doesnt agree with. And then to back that up, he remains silent over actual government attempts to reign in speech because it doesnt fit with the liberal snowflake narrative.
We dont need to take these bad faith actors on their word when their actions have already showed their arguments to be false.
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Iâll judge him by his actions. Fingers crossed Twitter becomes less of a lefty cess-pit.
It will stay a cesspit of hate-speech, intolerance, misguidance and stupidity. Itâs in the nature of the beast Iâm afraid.
Oh I wouldnât say the left is guilty of all those things Hope, well, not all the time 
It depends on how you define the left. Putinâs trolls for instance, who influenced directly one of your elections a few years ago, were very active on Twitter⌠and Trump had free reign during years on this social platform, as well as on others, which helped him to be elected. Ejecting that idiot is actually one of the few good things theyâve done lately, one less idiot able to propagate ineptitudes.
Musk will likely reverse it though, in the name of âfreedom of expressionâ. Yeah right⌠
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Where are people without any training in public health or infectious disease supposed to opine about the best way to deal with Covid?
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NHS? Social media is exactly that. You want information, go to factual informative media.
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Overall donât know if itâs good or bad.
But I do believe bots are a fundamental problem. One so big itâs bad for democracy.
I get that he is a free speech absolutist. But if peoples identities are known they should self moderate more. Itâs easy to be bigoted, hateful, spiteful when anonymous.
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Am I correct in thinking he wants to monetise?
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I donât think anyone really knows, but this seems like the least likely motivation (especially at this valuation). Most the plausible seeming theories relate to him being a megalomaniac twat unable to cope with the lack of control over the discourse around him and his initiatives.
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Elonâs off to a good start in my opinion!
See his reply? 
Funny, but not Elon
Doh. Thatâll learn me skimming twitter.
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