Words are never causal. All the more so in this case. Elon Musk announced the acquisition of Twitter, obviously in a tweet, with an expression “The bird is freed”, in Italian it sounds bad but the translation is “the bird is freed”, which wants to summarize its objectives and intention to change the social network, used to chirp according to its rules. How it will do it and why are the two questions that users, the financial community, and also the political world, particularly attentive to the weight that the ideas propagated via social media have assumed, have been asking themselves since it was expressed by Tesla’s boss. going to take over Twitter. For now there are some summary indications and also, deliberately, ambiguous. Elon Musk said he wants to “defeat” Twitter spam bots, make the algorithms that determine how content is presented to its users publicly available, and prevent the platform from becoming an echo chamber of hatred and division, including if limiting censorship. Still, he hasn’t given details on how he will accomplish all this and who will manage the company. He has also tried to stem the rumors of an impending mass layoff plan. Although it started with zeroing the top, with the CEO Parag Agrawal and the financial director Ned Segal forced to pack boxes and, in full respect of the ruthless American tradition, escorted out of the headquarters. Reassurances also to the advertisers of the social network, who could have taken as a bad signal its ruthless against the rules of moderation and the code of conduct imposed so far on users. Precisely the issues of censorship, alleged or real, and freedom of expression, also questionable in the mobile border with propaganda and the distorted use of the world sounding board that Twitter offers, are central to understanding the real intentions of Tesla’s patron. . The words spent by Elon Musk, in an open letter, also indicate on this front the attempt to balance the tears of recent months: “Twitter obviously cannot become a free hell for everyone, where you can say anything without consequences”. However, in the hands of a billionaire and visionary entrepreneur like Elon Musk, it is surely destined to change. How, and with what profile, the choices that will arrive from tomorrow will tell. But the $ 44 billion investment is unlikely to remain an end in itself. Twitter is now a tool Musk can use to guide and influence public opinion. And it is presumable that he does it not out of a philanthropic spirit but to support his own interests. (by Fabio Insenga)
