“Freedom of speech” but not “Freedom of reach.”

There’s a lot of perfectly legal stuff you can say that is unpleasant to look at: racial slurs, graphic violent content, bullying, spam (more on that later). That type of content is generally bad for business because most users — and advertisers — don’t want to be around it.

Musk knows this. Which is why he has said, paradoxically, that he will use algorithms to promote and downrank content, arguing for “freedom of speech” but not “freedom of reach.” More here.

The takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk has brought into focus, for me, just how much I like the platform. It has also made some people panic, as they always do, that the social network will become a toxic place that will not be worth visiting in the future.

The thing is that Twitter is already toxic. Any network with more than 5 people on it will become toxic from time to time, but if the rules are relaxed it could very well become a horrible place that does nothing more than breed negativity and potentially more Trumps and Johnsons.

I am not worrying yet because if it gets too bad something else will come along and Musk will lose a lot of money. I can live with that?