Elon Musk, who took control of Twitter on October 28, tweeted: “the bird is freed”. The new boss of Twitter has been tweeting about the platform, its content, its users, etc., continuously for the past several months.
In one of his twitter polls in March, he posed a question if the platform rigorously adheres to the principle of free speech. He also said free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. His tweet following this poll said: “The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully.”
Of the more than 20 lakh votes polled, nearly 70 per cent of the users said the platform does not adhere to the principle of free-speech.
His tweet in April said: “Free speech is the bedrock of functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.” He wanted to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots and authenticating all humans.
“Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it,” he said in that tweet.
However, in May, Musk had kept the plan to buy Twitter on hold, seeking the number of spam and fake accounts on the social media platform.
In one of his replies to a tweet, he said: “20 per cent fake/spam accounts, while four-times what Twitter claims, could be *much* higher…”
In his message to Twitter advertisers on October 27, Musk said: “The reason I acquired Twitter is because “it is important to the future of civilisation to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner without resorting to violence…”
Anand Mahindra, Chairman of Mahindra Group, who is active on Twitter, tweeted: “The Bird has indeed been set free @elonmusk and we certainly want it to soar ever higher…but we’re hoping it will be a guided flight to a new orbit…not one that hurtles out of control. 🙏🏽 Wishing you well…”
