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Five Tremendously Bad Results of Elon Musk’s Twitter Acquisition We Know About So Far
As always, numbers don't lie.
It has been already four months since Elon Musk completed the purchase of Twitter on October 27, 2022, a deed that sparked numerous conversations.
I personally didn't care about the platform's new ownership until I stumbled upon a marketing study on Musk's influence on advertisers on Twitter. As watching marketing trends is part of my work, I decided to look further into the company's newest development.
And I was quite astonished by what I found. Unfortunately, in a negative sense.
It seems like transformations caused by the new CEO did more harm than good, and apparently, Elon isn't done with this bomb-dropping yet.
Here is an overview of his four-month achievements.
Bullying and attacks on minorities became the new forms of free speech
The moment Musk acquired Twitter, far-right users had a great reason to celebrate.
Musk's dream of running a “warm and welcoming” platform where everyone gets the right to free speech quickly turned into homophobic and transphobic statements propagation.
During the first days, people were literally testing Twitter moderation rules by posting offensive content aimed at minorities — just to see whether they get banned.
Alejandra Caraballo, a civil rights attorney who came out as transgender a few years ago, stated that just hours after Elon bought Twitter, she started receiving tons of transphobic messages. The same happened to her trans friends.
The lack of employees and new moderation rules make hateful tweets and commentaries appear longer in the users' newsfeeds before they're taken down. Plus, many accounts spreading hatred somehow avoid penalties for such behavior.
While Musk commented that “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences,” the last happenings indicate this platform is moving in the opposite direction.
