A Better East Texas: Musk buys Twitter

TYLER, Texas (KLTV/KTRE) - Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, has purchased a nearly 10 percent stake in the social media platform Twitter.

That cost him roughly $3 billion. He still has billions to burn, if you are interested.

But the purchase of the Twitter stock and ensuing discussion on his motives are intriguing. Musk has been very critical of Twitter in the past as he sees the platform that banned Donald Trump for life, as the de facto public town square. He persists in demanding that Twitter relaxes its rules on content and essentially lets people speak their minds.

That is a great concept, as a concept. The challenge is that Twitter, even if it relaxes its policies, will still have to regulate the platform for content, especially in today’s global chess match. They must still find a way to welcome free speech but also manage offensive content as well as forged and blatantly false content.

I understand that flies in the face of free speech but there are limits in that arena as well that address sexually explicit or damaging images and manipulated or forged content. The de facto public town square he speaks of just doesn’t exist anymore because, in a public square, you know who is saying what and who is behind the messaging. That is not the case with Twitter.

So, Elon Musk and Twitter management must find a way to open the platform up some but protect those that can be injured by it. If Musk has proven anything, he can usually accomplish what he wants.

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