Cape Times

Elon Musk keeps to his promise and releases Twitter file revelation­s

- Wesley Diphoko is the Editor-in-Chief of Fast Company (SA) magazine.

THE RICHEST man in the world has delivered on his promise to enable free speech on Twitter.

Elon unleashed a bombshell over the weekend with the release of the Twitter files.

Essentiall­y, the files are communicat­ions within Twitter (before Elon's time) that show how the social media platform influenced the US elections.

One of the major highlights from the files reveal how Twitter tried to hide embarrassi­ng informatio­n about the US President's son, Hunter Biden.

The files also show how the US mainstream media colluded with Twitter to control the narrative during the US election period.

On the other hand, the files also show the kind of environmen­t Elon Musk walked into when he bought Twitter. Chances are he did not know the kind of operations that took place in the company, especially around censorship.

He has now been forced to release informatio­n that could have been published by a fired employee at a later stage. In his words he said during one Twitter space session “the idea here is to come clean on everything that happened in the past, to build public trust for the future”.

By revealing this informatio­n, Elon Musk has shaken the establishm­ent and revealed what has been suspected about how the narrative is controlled.

He has also turned Twitter into being a very important media platform. He is busy turning Twitter into something that should have been done by media entities.

Some will applaud Elon Musk for being brave and releasing this informatio­n. What is also becoming clear is that content moderation is one of the hardest parts of running Twitter.

Recently, some have predicted that Twitter will fall, however the platform is still here.

The engineerin­g part and tech elements about Twitter are the easiest for the new owner.

The toughest part is deciding what kind of content that can be allowed. Recently, Kanye West was allowed to come back on Twitter and was booted out again for posting an offensive tweet.

These decisions will be tough for Elon Musk as long as there's no content moderation council as he has suggested.

The sooner the company appoints a group of people to make these decisions it will be tough.

Besides all of these challenges, Elon Musk leads in a way that makes the platform different from what it was.

Elon Musk is leading from the front which is the best way to run a platform like Twitter. He makes his views known and he's doing everything in his power to take Twitter to another level of operation.

He is making Twitter a transparen­t platform in a way that has never been seen before.

The question is, what's happening in other social media platforms as far as censorship?

Is it possible that something similar would have happened with Facebook? To what extent do similar activities occur towards other countries?

If there's anything to learn from the Twitter files is that countries ought to be requiring more accountabi­lity from social media companies. It is clear now what they are capable of in terms of influencin­g developmen­ts in society.

If they can try to influence decision making in the US, other countries are probably even treated worse.

 ?? ?? WORLD’S richest man Elon Musk.
WORLD’S richest man Elon Musk.
 ?? ?? WESLEY DIPHOKO
WESLEY DIPHOKO

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