The world’s wealthiest man may be planning an ambitious new project. Elon Musk tweeted out a series of questions and polls that began on March 24th. The first poll asked whether Twitter’s algorithm should be open source. Out of the over 1.1 million respondents, over 82% agreed that Twitter should reveal its decision-making processes for how the feed that Twitter displays is operated and governed.
The following day, Musk released another poll.
Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy.
Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 25, 2022
Nearly double the polling size as the day before, more than 1.4 million participants cast a resounding “no” on Musks’ question. Less than an hour after the poll was released, the self-professed “DogeFather” (Dogecoin crypto humor) tweeted the following.
“The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully.”
There have been numerous stories in the past about obfuscation of content. Whether it be recordings of senior engineers admitting to shadowbanning (Project Veritas), or more recent outright suspensions over satirical content regarding transgenderism (Babylon Bee), freedom of speech has taken a backseat in order to maintain ideological control of the platform. https://www.projectveritas.com/investigation/twitter/
https://babylonbee.com/news/twitter-has-shut-down-the-bee
With virtually unlimited resources at his disposal, Musk may set his sight on creating a new medium of exchange for information. Although there is competition in the arena of platforms promoting free speech (Bitchute, Gab, Truth Social, etc.), Musk has proven that competition is not a factor in delivering a superior product to the market. Time will tell if he delivers.
