Twitter Must be Politically Neutral: Elon Musk

Until Elon Musk took over the platform, Twitter has often been criticised for being too lenient towards handles that propagate the Left ideology

Elon Musk, entrepreneur, investor, and business magnate, has been in the news after the much talked about acquisition of the popular social media platform Twitter. With news of banned accounts being reinstated on the rise, Elon Musk has tweeted saying there is a need for people to regain their trust on Twitter. “For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally,” he said. 

Accounts that propagate the far Right ideology had often in the past highlighted that they were wrongly banned, or their reach was dialled down as they accused Twitter to be left leaning. Musk also has alleged that Twitter has censored free speech so far. “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,” he said. 

He has also suggested that Twitter direct messages (DMs) need to be encrypted. “Twitter DMs should have end to end encryption like Signal, so no one can spy on or hack your messages,” he said. He has also suggested that with the changes that he plans to bring about, both the Left and Right leaning accounts would be upset. “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,” said Musk.