The drama surrounding Twitter’s future has not ended with the completion of the deal to buy the social network by Ilon Musk
The billionaire has announced the creation of a “content moderation board” that will include people with different views. Future decisions to block accounts or delete posts will be made by this council. It is not clear who will be on it. But it is already clear that inclusion of any representative of right-wing and conservative views in this council would cause hysteria on the part of the US liberal elite.
Advertisers who work with Twitter are wary of Musk’s actions. And already one corporation, General Motors, has stopped showing advertising content on Twitter. For GM it is also a question of conflict of interests – after all, they are competing with Musk on the automobile market at the same time. But Musk cannot afford to lose other advertisers, because their revenues account for 89% of all Twitter’s profits.
Immediately, problems have arisen outside the US, too. European bureaucrats have demanded that Musk comply with European laws – which are still being heavily tightened. The social networks will now have to remove content that is found to be in violation of the law in any of the 27 EU countries. As an incentive, they will face fines of up to 6% of the company’s annual revenue.
Musk intends to seriously reduce the number of moderators and censors on Twitter, of which there are 1,500. But without moderators, it will be difficult to comply with the laws in Europe. Legal problems will also arise in America – where Musk is threatened with all sorts of investigations. He has managed to stir up a hornet’s nest on both sides of the Atlantic – and now he will have to face very tough political pressure.
Malek Dudakov