Elon Musk's plans to fix Twitter are pretty radical
San Francisco, California - If you're getting whiplash from the rollercoaster ride of Elon Musk and his Twitter ownership, you're not alone. But apparently he has big plans once the deed is done.
Twitter's bombshell announcement on Monday that the company will accept the deal for Musk to snag the company at a cool $44 billion made waves, but this ride is far from over.
Musk has lofty goals for improving everyone's favorite doomscrolling machine, like getting rid of the spambots and fake accounts that ruin users' day.
Musk's solution is simple: verify each user to make sure they're human. After that, everyone would only have one account, and spam or fake accounts would, in theory, die off.
But that solution has its own problems, because users would need to verify their identity, erasing the idea of anonymity on Twitter. It could also make running business and alternate accounts extra tricky.
Another part of Musk's big plan to fix the platform is to make Twitter's source code open-access, so that everyone can understand how content is handled by the company's algorithms.
But that has serious tech challenges, since user data is wrapped up in that code. Making that information publicly available would turn privacy concerns into a security nightmare.
He's also polled users about adding an edit button – a change that many users would love to have – and asked them in a different poll if they think Twitter supports the idea of free speech.
But Musk can't exactly take credit if these additions come to pass. Twitter was already working on an edit button before Musk started his rampage, and he seems to have forgotten the teensy-tiny detail that Twitter is a for-profit company – not a monument to freedom of speech.
Although Musk is all squared away to buy Twitter, the deal won't wrap up until later this year, and needs shareholder approval.
Cover photo: Collage: 123RF/zlajo & REUTERS