WHEN Elon Musk said he would buy Twitter, there was widespread concern among some of its massive userbase. When that purchase became reality, that panic became hysterical, and for good reason.
Elon Musk has fired a large number of Twitter employees, many of whom, as far as I can see, were expendable.
Soon after the purchase, a lot of people started making predictions about Twitter’s imminent collapse. The site will, soon, join the likes of ancient websites like Friendster and MySpace, they proclaimed.
That hasn’t happened as of the writing of the article. That may change, especially since many Twitter advertiser, have pulled out after Musk’s recent decisions. We can’t really know. No one does.
But the real problem with Elon Musk’s purchase is that he bought a significant portion of the virtual Public Space, and Musk, from what I can tell, is a techno-libertarian. He believes in freedom of speech and diverse sources of information.
In contrast, those who opposed Musk’s transaction believe that unbridled free speech is dangerous. They also generally believe that institutions should not be questioned; that if one has to choose between safety and freedom, one should choose safety; and that certain ideas that could undermine liberalism and democracy should be banned from public discourse.
This is why Musk has taken a lot of pressure. Already, he has restored certain accounts banned by Twitter in the past, and is planning to restore more. For some people, this is unacceptable. As far as they’re concerned, those previously banned accounts were removed for a reason.
Now, the average Ilonggo or Filipino might not care much about Musk and Twitter, but we should in the sense that the issue at large is between freedom of speech and safety/harm avoidance. It is one of the biggest issues of our age, and will affect us in some way because we also use the virtual public space.
How Musk handles Twitter will have many far-reaching effects how discourse and ideas will be transmitted both online and in real life./PN
