We were all fed up with Twitter's open interventions on freedom of expression during the presidential elections in the United States and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Just at that time, Elon Musk emerged as a “superhero,” promising to free Twitter from the bondage and censorship mechanisms of power groups.
How complicated a problem could Twitter be for the genius behind Tesla and SpaceX, who can compete with states in technology, send rockets to space and return them, and knows no bounds in creativity? Furthermore, Musk’s rhetoric for change, which spurned the patterns of political correctness, looked believable. Thus, he managed to gather fans from all over the world. Even I wrote dozens of articles supporting Musk.
However, after the past few months, this strong wave of support has given way to disappointment.
Musk started this adventure with quotes from ancient Greek philosophers. “In the relentless pursuit of clicks, much of traditional media has fueled and catered to those polarized extremes, as they believe that brings in the money, but, in doing so, the opportunity for dialogue is lost. That is why I bought Twitter. I didn't do it because it would be easy. I didn't do it to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love. And I do so with humility, recognizing that failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, is a very real possibility,” he said.
The current position of our idealistic entrepreneur, on the other hand, looks like a town merchant trying to sell paid subscriptions in the “digital town square.”
Paid subscriptions such as the blue verification badge, which he put into practice, are merely a fiasco. The subscriptions are imposed on everyone, including users who received a blue mark many years ago, so that they can enjoy minimal security practices such as double verification. Whose idea was it?
Second, and more importantly, Musk has not taken a single noteworthy move to liberate Twitter, other than activating a few accounts that were closed by the former administration.
Yes, after exposing some scandalous correspondence, he dissolved some of the company's units that had been too involved with government agencies such as the White House and the FBI. However, this blow to the censorship mechanisms was limited to the U.S. His move did not solve the problems that users in other countries of the world have been suffering from for years.
However, just as there are political interests that collapsed on Twitter in the U.S., Twitter is similarly under the control of certain groups in other countries.
For instance, there are serious discussions on this issue in Türkiye. Numerous examples are shown of imbalances in the display of tweets. The claim that some users were flagged and their sharing was restricted for political reasons is widely accepted. This situation naturally shakes the trust of the Turkish people, who are the most loyal users of Twitter in the world. It turns people off from actively using Twitter.
I want to remind Musk of his previous words: “The reason I acquired Twitter is that it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence.”
Also, I kindly request he takes the necessary action.
Yes, all he has to do is keep Twitter users informed about the algorithms or accept that “making algorithms transparent is a dream” and step aside like a gentleman.