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-Editorial
Elon Musk is the new boss of Twitter and he is making his presence felt as changes are being made internally.
After months of speculation, Musk sealed the deal to buy the popular social media platform. According to the Associated Press, Musk is in charge of the social media platform and has fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and Chief Legal Counsel Vijaya Gadde.
The billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO initially agreed to buy the company for $44 billion, but soon after tried to get out of the deal because he claimed Twitter was not forthcoming enough about spam accounts on the platform.
Musk said the reason he 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 healthily, without resorting to violence.
“There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right-wing and far left-wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society,” Musk said.
He pointed out that in an effort for the relentless pursuit of clicks, much of traditional media has fueled and catered to those polarized extremes, as they believe that is what brings in the money, but, in doing so, the opportunity for dialogue is lost, he said.
“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 it so with humility, recognizing that failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, is a very real possibility,” he mentioned.
However, Musk said Twitter cannot become a “free-for-all hellscape” where anything can be said with no consequences.
“In addition to adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all, where you can choose your desired experience according to your preferences, just as you can choose, for example, to see movies or play video games ranging from all ages to mature.
I also very much believe that advertising, when done right, can delight, entertain and inform you; it can show you a service or product or medical treatment that you never knew existed but is right for you. For this to be true, it is essential to show Twitter users advertising that is as relevant as possible to their needs. Low relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are actually content!”
