Elon Musk has a seat on Twitter’s board of administrators, proper after revealing himself as the most important shareholder within the social media firm.

The announcement immediately sparked rumors of change, as Twitter customers speculated on how the world’s wealthiest man may affect the platform.

Musk has been questioning Twitter’s moderation insurance policies for weeks, and at one level, even claimed to be contemplating beginning his personal social media platform to rival Twitter (this technique didn’t work out for Donald Trump, who doesn’t even use his personal platform, Truth Social).

Musk appears overtly decided to make adjustments, underneath the guise of democracy. On March 25, 11 days after changing into Twitter’s largest shareholder, Musk tweeted a ballot, asking his followers, “Free speech is important to a functioning democracy. Do you consider Twitter rigorously adheres to this precept?” Musk added in a follow-up tweet: “The results of this ballot might be essential. Please vote rigorously.”

After revealing his new place on the board of administrators, Musk polled his followers once more, asking if Twitter ought to add an edit button, deliberately together with spelling errors to underline his level – this time, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal noted that the ballot would have essential penalties. With nearly all of Musk’s Twitter followers being made up of simpering Tesla followers, the outcomes of those polls is perhaps greater than a bit skewed.

A Twitter edit button has lengthy been the topic of debate for Twitter customers, because the potential for bad-faith trolling that an edit button would invite is perhaps an excessive amount of for the chaotic platform, as customers can be possible to have the ability to edit the that means of tweets after they’ve gone viral.

An edit button, nevertheless, might be only the start, as Musk’s ascension to the board has many Twitter customers involved that the adjustments the billionaire has deliberate might be detrimental to the standard of dialog on the location (which, frankly, has by no means been nice).

Whereas Musk identifies as a “free-speech absolutist,” the billionaire is notoriously thin-skinned, famously slandering a cave explorer as “pedo man” on Twitter, threatening critics with authorized motion, and reportedly firing workers who disagree with him. On Twitter, Musk has angrily responded to The Onion, after the satirical information website mocked him (amusingly, The Onion has since doubled down).

For Musk’s ever-impressed fanbase, nevertheless, the information was seen as uplifting; Musk’s new place even impressed followers of former President Donald Trump, who immediately started campaigning for Trump to return to the platform, which he was famously banned from after tweeting concerning the January sixth riot.

Different customers referred to as for the return of The Babylon Bee, the satirical information website that was suspended from Twitter in March, after misgendering Assistant Secretary for Well being Dr. Rachel Levine, remaining offline after refusing to take away the offending tweet.

The Babylon Bee jokes about gender and variety from a socially conservative perspective, and infrequently portrays Musk in an overwhelmingly positive light. Therefore, Musk has voiced his enthusiastic approval for the location, and appears to overlook its presence on Twitter.

Babylon Bee CEO, Seth Dillon, claims that Musk contacted him earlier than his huge buy, eager to know if the satirical website had actually been banned. On Twitter, Dillon wrote:

“Musk reached out to us earlier than he polled his followers about Twitter’s dedication to free speech. He needed to verify that we had, actually, been suspended. He even mused on that decision that he may want to purchase Twitter. Now he’s the most important shareholder and has a seat on the board.”

It stays to be seen if Musk will show as consequential as Twitter customers consider, or if his new position will quantity to only one other publicity stunt from the infamous web troll.