Will Elon Musk be the gravedigger of Twitter, which he just bought for 44 billion US dollars?
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
In the short term, the answer is no. The midterm elections will take place next week in the United States, politicians and the American media will certainly not deprive themselves of this platform, even if the climate there is more unhealthy than ever.
Yes, some celebrities with several million subscribers, such as star producer Shonda Rhimes, have slammed the door since the sale of the social network to the richest man in the world, but nothing to shake the columns of the temple.
In the medium and long term, however, Twitter risks becoming marginalized and becoming an alternative network frequented only by radicals and conspiracy theorists, who are already there in large numbers. This is a worrying prospect that must be prevented.
Let’s face it, Twitter’s drift didn’t start the day Tesla’s megalomaniacal chairman bought out Twitter for, he said, “the welfare of mankind.”
No, Twitter’s drift started long before, somewhere during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Since then, the climate of the social network has seriously deteriorated. Twitter has become a den of conspirators, carriers of fake news and hate speech. A place where people, under cover of anonymity, insult their neighbor to who better.
Twitter has also become a propaganda tool for countries like Russia and China which have pushed disinformation campaigns, especially about the invasion of Ukraine.
We thought we had reached the tipping point with the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the “freedom” convoy in Ottawa, but the worst may be yet to come if we believe the events of the last few days.
The ink had barely dried on Twitter’s sales contract when there was already a marked increase in racist remarks on the social network. And on Sunday, the owner himself, Elon Musk, relayed false news about the husband of Nancy Pelosi, the victim of an attacker who broke into the family home in San Francisco.
It’s absolutely stunning.
Mr Musk, not his first questionable tweet, has since taken it down, but the damage was done.
Remember that Twitter has not always been this pool of viscous mud where all shots are allowed. The social network has already been a significant element of the media ecosystem. A press wire, a place of exchange involving the media, politicians, influencers and citizens who were consumers of information, Twitter was a place where people could get information, comment and exchange.
In Quebec, Twitter really made its mark in 2010 during the earthquake in Haiti when, for a few hours, it became the only means of obtaining information on the disaster. This tragedy was followed by the Arab Spring, in 2011, and our maple spring, in 2012, two movements that were deployed on Twitter, which is also a meeting place during election nights or major television events.
Twitter will never return to being the go-to social network it was in the 2010s, but two things could keep it from sinking further into the fringes and becoming a rallying point for all radicals.
Laws first.
On Friday, European Commissioner Thierry Breton recalled on Twitter that in Europe, “the bird will fly according to our rules”, a reference to the legislation on digital services which will come into force in January 2024 (the bird being the logo of Twitter).
In Canada, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pablo Rodriguez, is also working on a bill on disinformation and hate speech that would better regulate what is said on social networks.
Twitter’s real salvation, however, may come from advertisers. The day after Elon Musk took control of Twitter, while the billionaire fired part of the company’s management, the car manufacturer General Motors (GM) announced that it was taking a break from the social network while seeing what direction the new owner would take.
True, GM is a competitor. But the New York Times reports that several advertisers could walk away if Musk doesn’t regulate what’s being said on his new network, lest their reputations be tarnished.
If the pressure is strong enough, there could be a ripple effect. However, advertising represents 89% of the revenue generated by Twitter, which was around 5 billion in 2021.
In the end, perhaps money will have the last word.