This Week in Elon: smashing the irony button

Image: Dami Lee

There are some ideas about how to run the bird app that Musk has, and they involve layoffs, subscriptions, and a sarcastic button. The contents of a video chat Musk had with employees of the micro-messaging service were leaked to reporters by them. The results of the meeting were predictable but illuminating for anyone who has spent a lot of time trying toauthenticate all humans.

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While game designers worry about the day-to-day operations of their jobs, Musk had the energy of a rich MMORPG fan who buys a studio so he can implement his completely rad spell and weapon designs. At least the devs weren't imploring their new boss to stop trash talking them in public. When asked if they will be able to work from home, Musk promised that exceptional workers can stay remote. Musk said that there will be job cuts to become profitable on the micro-blogging site. Adding TikTok-style algorithmic recommendations, along with your average internet company mainstays like payment processing, sit alongside that plan.

While dealing with the rest of Musk's business empire may be more fun than playing on the social media platform. Employees are getting laid off because of the increasing cost of the company's cars. His lawyers are still looking for a sympathetic court for his years-long battle with the SEC, and they will probably bill Musk a few more hours to handle a long-shot lawsuit accusing him of doge coin racketeering. The FAA is asking the company to make changes to its Texas launch site, while employees of the company are writing a letter to Musk asking him to stop posting on his social media accounts. The firing of at least five of them was reminiscent of some revenge that got him in legal trouble.

Musk has no responsibilities at the social networking site. He told employees that he wants to drive the product in a particular direction, but he doesn't care about being the CEO. He can use his crappy hotel wi-fi to research new features like an irony label that indicates whether or not a person is serious. The more Musk talks about what he would change, the more it is unclear.

Something users hacked together a solution for years ago, integrated into the formal interface is a classic type ofaddition to the service. Musk seems to be throwing ideas at the wall and walking them back when questioned, with no clear vision beyond getting a billion users and becoming wildly profitable, a far cry from his earlier calls for unfettered speech. When pressed, he retreats into positions the company has effectively held for years.

It was Musk who promoted the idea of authenticating all humans as a way to fight fake news. It would be disruptive and erode anonymity to verify that every user is a real person. It is possible that Musk scaled the idea back in Thursday's meeting due to the fact that people would pay to prove they are a human and have their supposedly more trustworthytweet prioritized. Things like replies are prioritized by account credibility. There is a tradeoff if you are concerned about freedom of speech. Musk's proposal will either involve tweaking something Twitter already does, or it will compromise the ability of ordinary non-billionaires to speak.

There is a distinction between freedom of speech and freedom of reach. He said that people should be allowed to say outrageous things that are within the bounds of the law. We need to strike a balance between allowing people to say what they want to say but also making people comfortable on the social networking site. For years, the speech / reach division has been a common talking point for platform executives, and it is standard operating procedure for Facebook and Twitter itself. It is a core part of the vision for Bluesky, the open-source Twitter spinoff that predates Musk.

It is ironic that Musk would call for it because he has been complaining about the restriction of his content on the platform. Shadowbanning is the expression of limiting reach, and he was thinking about it in April. If the limits are transparent, it will be possible to solve any problems by making the recommendations open source. This is a red herring. There are benefits to opening up social networks, but it probably won't tell the average person if Bill Gates looks like a pregnant man or not.

Musk has a commitment to a certain free speech aesthetic. In Thursday's meeting, he stated that he is the center of the normal distribution of political views in the country. He has his political bases covered with both parties, but he supports a far-from-centrist Republican who is going to become president. He frequently describes his support for speaking within the bounds of the law.

Musk sounded like any other risk-averse social network operator when confronted with the many problems that stated commitment posed. He seems to be interested in shaping what is seen on the social networking site. One of his big-picture goals is for Twitter to offer a more socially conscious version of TikTok.

It’s important to make Twitter as attractive as possible. And really, that means not showing people content that they would find hateful or offensive, or even frankly content they would find boring is not good. We don’t even want them to see boring content. Unless — we were talking about TikTok last night. And TikTok obviously does a great job of making sure you’re not bored.

[...]

You know, TikTok is interesting, but, like, you want to be informed about serious issues as well. And I think Twitter, in terms of serious issues, can be a lot better for informing people about serious issues. I do think it’s important that if there are two sides to an issue, it’s important to represent multiple opinions. But you know, and just make sure that we’re not sort of driving narrative. There’ll be — give people an opportunity to understand the various sides of issues.

There is a case study on the line between moderation and intrusive censorship. During the time when Trump wanted to ban it from the country, it almost completely escaped accusations of political bias. The way a generation speaks has changed thanks to soft bans on words like "suicide" and the way its algorithm has created a strange new vocabulary. There is a language called alsa. It is the kind of system that should prompt a closer look at the power of social networks.

Assuming he ever gets to wield the banhammer, Musk seems as confident in his power as ever.