Everything Elon Musk wants to change about Twitter

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Everything Elon Musk wants to change about Twitter

Elon Musk speaks at a press conference at SpaceX's Starbase facility near Boca Chica Village in South Texas on February 10, 2022. Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images Elon Musk on Thursday night, and with his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, he is already he has said he wants to implement. State of play: Even after to renege, Musk has talked for a while about the things he would want to change about the social media platform, from ending permanent bans to limiting content moderation. Here's a look at everything Musk has said he wants to alter:

Ending permanent bans

Musk said he would like to reform the platform's use of , including reversing former President Trump's ban — a stance that agrees with.Musk called Twitter's ban of Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot "morally wrong and flat out stupid" because it didn't silence Trump but drove him to create his own social media platform, Truth Social.He believes permanent bans on Twitter should be quite rare because they "fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter as a town square where everyone can voice their opinion," though he said they could be used against "spam" or "scam" accounts.Instead, he would like the platform to temporarily suspend people who tweet something "that is illegal or destructive to the world" or delete the tweet entirely.

Long-form tweets

Musk has also suggested allowing long-form tweets. He on a long Twitter thread in April 2022: "My most immediate takeaway from this novella of a thread is that Twitter is *way* overdue for long form tweets!" Where it stands: Twitter has a 280 character limit. The company increased from a 140 characters in 2017.

Spam bots and authentication

Musk spam bots "the single most annoying problem" on Twitter. He in April 2022: "If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!" He wrote in a reply to that tweet that Twitter would "authenticate all real humans" under his ownership.

Open-source algorithm

Musk has said he's concerned about bias being inherent to Twitter's algorithm — which he said he'd solve with an open-source algorithm.In late March 2022, he , "I’m worried about de facto bias in 'the Twitter algorithm' having a major effect on public discourse. How do we know what’s really happening?"Musk his followers on whether they'd support an open-source algorithm. About 83% of more than 1.1 million respondents said they would. Be smart: An open-source algorithm would make publicly available the calculus which determines what appears on a person's Twitter feed.

Content moderation

Musk has outlined his for Twitter. He said at the TED2022 conference he thinks Twitter should not regulate content beyond what is required by the laws of the countries it operates in."A lot of people are going to be super unhappy with West Coast high tech as the de facto arbiter of free speech," Musk said in a in January 2021. Our thought bubble: It's easier to advocate broad policy change from the outside of a company like Twitter than to enact it from within. It's also worth remembering that Musk has been a mercurial tweeter, and his plans could easily change. Editor's note: This story has been updated with new details throughout. Go deeper: Podcast:

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