Following Elon Musk's drastic $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter, which still requires some regulatory hurdles before it is officially set in stone, a weighty exodus of users has proven to show how a majority of the mass public feels about the billionaire's buyout. Yesterday, Apr. 27th, Musk himself took to the proverbial "digital town square," as he himself called it, to weigh in on the growing pains of his newly accepted deal.
"For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally," Musk wrote.
For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 27, 2022
The Tesla executive has been quite vocal over the past several days since the Twitter board greenlit his proposal to buy Twitter at $54.20 a share. Not 24 hours prior to these words previously cited, Musk also relayed even more depth on his stance regarding free speech and anti-censorship on the network, pointing out these very dilemmas as ever-highlighting the woes most readily felt in regards to the overall steering of the website.
"The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all," he wrote on Apr. 26th, adding in a followup Tweet, "By 'free speech', I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people."
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Despite his sentiments and various convictions, not just on the state of the network itself but the overall reality surrounding free speech in an online form, several Twitter users have already closed their accounts. The exodus can be felt in follower numbers, highlighting a growing trend that leftist social media users are readily fearful of, an ever-growing vocal majority of more right-wing pundits on the platform.
Numbers taken from Social Blade prove the volatile swings some of the most prominent Twitter users are now experiencing following Musk's buyout. It's best expressed via users like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a well-known left-wing US representative whose follower count on Twitter has dramatically plummeted by nearly 33,000. On the other side of the fence, however, are users like Ted Cruz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, both prominent right-wingers, who have gained 120,000 and 148,000 followers, respectively.
Obviously, it's not just politically-minded individuals experiencing these volatile swings in followership, as even the likes of Harry Styles (33,000) and Taylor Swift (-17,000) have seen a bump and loss, but the optics clearly aren't ideal. Musk himself even weighed in, showcasing the top charts on Apple's App Store, wherein Truth Social suddenly reigned supreme. Musk explains in a follow-up, "Truth Social (terrible name) exists because Twitter censored free speech."
Dick Costolo, Twitter's previous CEO from 2010 to 2015, posted in regards to Musk's most recent rantings targeting the firm's chief legal counsel, Vijaya Gadde, saying specifically, "Bullying is not leadership." Musk replied, "What are you talking about? I'm just saying Twitter needs to be politically neutral."
What are talking about? I’m just saying Twitter needs to be politically neutral.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 27, 2022
As it would seem, Twitter has no sooner evolved into a political stomping ground, wherein most left-wing pundits are searching for the exits fast as less censorship and more power grow to other angles on the site. Even so, to internal Twitter analysts, the swinging follower numbers prove little in the way of being a directly aftermath of Musk's buyout, but it is clear that a large proportion of the Twitter user base has deactivated their accounts, while even more are only just opening new ones.
In reply to right winger Ben Shapiro, Musk says the following:
"Attacks are coming thick and fast, primarily from the left, which is no surprise, however I should be clear that the right will probably be a little unhappy too. My goal is to maximize area under the curve of total human happiness, which means the ~80% of people in the middle."
Read Also: Twitter Ensures Users That Elon Musk Won't Make Platform More 'Toxic'
