The richest man in the world wants to afford the world’s most famous social network. As at the time of the lost illusions of Balzac, the world of money likes to buy the influence and the way to pass its ideas. By throwing his sights on Twitter, which he is a fervent user with his 82 million subscribers on his behalf, Elon Musk intends to restore “freedom of speech” on the networks. He chose the most fragile prey: Twitter is as famous as it is unprofitable. The firm has grown its first profit only twelve years after its creation in 2006.
like the first newspapers under the restoration, described a few years later by Balzac, it is difficult to find a sustainable economic model, unlike its great competitor facebook, created two years earlier and worthwhile on the stock market Twenty times more expensive. Until recently, social networks did not like being compared with traditional media. Facebook and Twitter do not have journalists and are content to relay the points of view and the states of mood of their billions of subscribers.
Moreover, the two sponsors of Twitter, who propelled it to the front of the stage and perhaps saved from the bankruptcy, are two opposing American presidents: Barack Obama in 2008 and Donald Trump throughout any its mandat (2017-2021). Prestigious ambassadors, but who have not brought great financial stability. On the contrary, the brutal eviction of Donald Trump has weakened the network and also demonstrated that it was not just a cross-soul exchange crossroads, but that it had a conscience, like a newspaper or a television channel. And that it was therefore likely to be regulated by the political power, what ELON must be rejected.
Facebook and Google siphonize
Constantly on horseback between the non-immixition in the conversations of their members, and the limits to the free speech imposed on them by the company, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Tiktok realize that a little censorship, or from Moderation in the jargon of the networks, is inevitable, to exclude, for example, calls to hatred or violence, or even the diffusion of mass massacres. This inevitable responsibility is all the greater as they have, too, as the press from its origins, to satisfy two customers, readers and advertisers, who make them live. And very well live when it comes to Facebook and Google, which value the data of their readers with companies.
You still have 31.04% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.