Musk's Twitter Grand Ambition: The Double-Edged Mirror of Advertising and Free Speech

Folks, Musk spent $44 billion to buy Twitter. What exactly is he trying to do? Some say he just wants to ramp up promotion for his other businesses, like Tesla. Why would Tesla start advertising? After all, it's just an electric car made in China, and it has no choice but to compete fiercely. So he brought in a new CEO for Twitter who comes from an advertising background. But this view actually underestimates Musk's ambitions. First, advertisers fear two things the most: first, fake results—bot armies and paid trolls, where money is spent but the impact is entirely fake; second, negative effects—extreme political views are low-value, high-risk content that can easily stir up trouble, making them a brand safety minefield. Unfortunately, Twitter has many of both types of users, so GroupM, an advertising media group, once labeled Twitter as 'high risk.' Although that label has now been removed, the future is still uncertain. Second, Musk himself has said that he bought Twitter to create a common digital public square for humanity because he loves humanity. Well, the last person who said he loved humanity was nailed to a cross, and now Musk is somewhat being crucified by Western media. Time magazine said he put his half-baked philosophy of free speech into practice with extreme efficiency. Musk, the new boss, has been making bold moves, cutting nearly 8,000 employees down to just 1,500. Because he thinks they're all trash—Twitter is a cesspool, 90% of employees take money but don't work, just hold useless meetings. One department that Musk completely axed was Trust and Safety, which was responsible for verifying traditional media. You all are the 'Ministry of Truth,' with your little blue checks; but media from China, Russia, and Iran are not allowed—they have to be specially labeled as 'state-affiliated media,' meaning their content is political propaganda and untrustworthy. Initially, in 2020, it was only targeted at Russia; later, Twitter consulted information warfare experts and human rights organizations and decided to add China. But that seemed a bit unfair, so they pretended to set a standard: labeling state-owned media and government officials from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. But for practicality, they still labeled China first. And Iran, too, was treated like a permanent member. Not only did they label them, but they also didn't recommend their content, causing them to lose followers—this is called shadowbanning. According to estimates, accounts sanctioned by the platform saw a 20% to 30% drop in reach and activity. Of course, China and Russia were angry about Twitter doing this: how can you, a Western social platform, be in bed with the government? Then the other pair of pants—the news media—jumped out and said: Shut up, we're talking about free speech here. Freedom is for people; as for us, good people are people, you bad people are not. Look at this fox borrowing the tiger's might. Actually, they are not media at all; Twitter is the media, and they are just a group of unpopular columnists attached to it. Musk doesn't think much of these columnists either. He said, do you think that because you have a blue check through this verification system, your words are more correct than ordinary users? What kind of caste system is this? Get rid of it. Power belongs to the people. So the people saw that, since they all have money, they might as well pay $8 a month for a membership, and the prestigious blue check is yours. So Twitter redid its verification system and also removed the negative labels for media from China, Russia, and other countries, and suppressed accounts started gaining followers again. Well, Western media had a meltdown: I am the uncrowned king, and you put me on the same level as conspiracy theories and marketing accounts—I barely tolerate that, but how can you let Chinese and Russian media escape their lowly status? Musk pondered and thought, right, then let me balance it out and label you as 'state-affiliated media' too? No way. Then let's change the wording—how about 'government-funded media'? BBC is still unhappy: I am not government-funded. But the government requires everyone to pay you, saving the middleman. Canada's CBC said, the government funding proportion must exceed 70% to get this label, right? Okay, label you as '69% state-funded.' This move directly angered NPR, which quit Twitter. Its last pinned message was 'Please subscribe to our newsletter.' Hilarious—what kind of pre-modern reading method is this? It's like a columnist saying: I will no longer contribute; readers, please come to my doorstep and line up to get my handwritten copies.