Zum Inhalt springen

Musk macht ernst: Die Finanzierung für die Twitter-Übernahme steht | Spotify goes Video-Podcasts | WhatsApp nimmt Communities in den Fokus

Musk macht ernst: Die Finanzierung für die Twitter-Übernahme steht

Update, 25.4.2022 | 21:54

Es ist passiert: Elon Musk übernimmt Twitter für 44 Milliarden Dollar (Tagesschau). Das gab der US-Kurznachrichtendienst bekannt. Das war heute morgen in unserem Briefing noch nicht absehbar. Alles andere, was wir hier schreiben, hat weiterhin Bestand – und ist letztlich aktueller denn je.

Was war

In Ausgabe #790 schrieben wir:

Es ist Elon Musk, das Drama geht weiter. Natürlich. (…) Vermutlich passiert über Ostern eh wieder irgendwas Verrücktes, und wir müssen noch mal über Musk schreiben.

Was ist

Diese Vorhersage ist eingetroffen (zugegeben: Sie war nicht besonders gewagt). Musk möchte Twitter kaufen. Das ist nicht nur eine Absichtserklärung. Er hat sich das nötige Geld geliehen und setzt Twitter damit unter großen Druck. Nach anfänglichem Widerstand verhandelt der Verwaltungsrat nun mit Musk. Damit ist eine Übernahme wahrscheinlicher geworden.

Wir sortieren die Ereignisse, werden aber nicht jedes Details beleuchten. Denn wenn wir aus den vergangenen Wochen eines gelernt haben, dann dies: In dem Moment, in dem wir das Briefing verschicken, hat es sich Musk vermutlich schon wieder anders überlegt.

Wie Musk Twitter schockte

Wie Twitter reagierte

Twitter was generally more open to discussing a deal than it had previously been, the person said, asking not to be identified discussing private information.

Twitter is nearing a deal to sell itself to Elon Musk, two people with knowledge of the situation said, a move that would unite the world’s richest man with the influential social networking service.

Was Musk mit Twitter vorhat

I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy. However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.

Warum Musks Pläne gefährlich sind

It’s worth watching, though mostly for how it shows how very, very little Musk understands about all of this. Indeed, what struck me about his views is how much they sound like what the techies who originally created social media said in the early days. And here’s the important bit: all of them eventually learned that their simplistic belief in how things should work does not work in reality and have spent the past few decades trying to iterate. And Musk ignores all of that while (somewhat hilariously) suggesting that all of those things can be figured out eventually, despite all of the hard work many, many overworked and underpaid people have been doing figuring exactly that out, only to be told by Musk he’s sure they’re doing it wrong.

Musk's dream is that you can somehow avoid the mess that modern-day platform content moderation has become by following some common-sense rules and erring on the side of freedom when the calls get tough. But at the scale of a global platform like Twitter, users will always be throwing out edge cases, novelties and unpredictable challenges. "Common sense" can never keep up.

If Elon Musk is able to take over Twitter Inc., his biggest promise is to transform it into a platform for free speech with few restrictions — something he calls "essential to a functioning democracy." But Musk, who is famously sensitive to criticism, has a mixed record on championing the cause.

A Musk-run Twitter is unlikely to be any more functional than it is now. Earlier, on April 19th, Musk tweeted, "A social media platform’s policies are good if the most extreme 10% on left and right are equally unhappy." Rather than general well-being, that’s an equation for further radicalization and outrage, with those of us in the middle eighty per cent stuck trying to go about our online lives as best we can.

In other words, the problem seems to be that Musk can’t or won’t recognize how much freedom and power to speak he actually has. Anyone with internet access can tweet, but what sets billionaires like Musk apart is that they can use their money to have a greater say in who wins elections, what kinds of laws are passed, or even how we should deal with a pandemic. And when you’re a public figure with millions of Twitter followers, even a simple reply to a critic can send a torrent of harassment their way.

Musk has never believed that power comes with responsibility. He’s been unperturbed when his tweets cause real suffering. During his long and storied history with Twitter he has threatened journalists and tweeted reckless things.

The desirability of letting one man decide the speech codes for a public forum with nearly half a billion users is certainly questionable. In an acquisition process such as this one, this raises the question whether fundamental rights concerns should be factored in, and how. Social media platforms have an enormous impact on how we express ourselves nowadays. Putting all that power into the hands of one person raises serious concerns, which warrant a deeper look than simply weighing the risk of economic power abuse.

Be smart

Wenn Mark Zuckerberg will, kann er bei Meta jede Entscheidung allein treffen. Seine Aktien geben ihm fast uneingeschränkte Macht. Mit vielen Dingen, die Zuckerberg sagt und tut, stimmen wir nicht überein, aber es hätte deutlich schlimmer kommen können – zum Beispiel in Gestalt von Elon Musk.

Die drohende Übernahme verdeutlicht abermals, warum es so problematisch ist, dass die globale Kommunikationsinfrastruktur in der Hand weniger Männer liegt. Was sie entscheiden, betrifft Hunderte Millionen Menschen, aber es gibt keine Kontrolle, und sie müssen sich für ihre Fehler nicht verantworten.

Bislang war das meist ein theoretisches Argument, jetzt wird es plötzlich real. Niemand sollte so viel Macht haben – erst recht nicht Elon Musk.


Social Media & Politik

People like Putin and Steve Bannon, for that matter, understand it’s not necessary for people to believe this information in order to weaken democratic institutions. You just have to flood a country’s public square with enough raw sewage. You just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt, plant enough conspiracy theorizing that citizens no longer know what to believe.


Follow the money


Video / Audio Boom


Creator Economy


Schon einmal im Briefing davon gehört


Aus der Praxis

Neue Features bei den Plattformen

Instagram

TikTok

WhatsApp

Erst gab es ein dickes Update in Sachen Sprachnachrichten (Briefing #788) – jetzt rücken Communities in den Fokus bei WhatsApp. Hier alle Ankündigungen en detail (Facebook Newsroom) – bei uns im kompakten Überblick:

YouTube

Facebook

Twitter

Clubhouse

Reddit

Telegram


Header-Foto von Jenny Ueberberg