Everything Elon Musk wants to change about Twitter
LOS ANGELES - Elon Musk reached an agreement to buy Twitter for roughly $44 billion on Monday, promising several changes to the social media platform which has received backlash for how it has policed content in the past.
Musk has promised a more lenient touch to policing content on the social media platform that for many years has worked to eliminate hate speech and toxic behavior.
Musk said in a joint statement with Twitter that he wants to make the service "better than ever" with new features, such as getting rid of automated "spam'' accounts and making its algorithms open to the public to increase trust.
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"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," the 50-year-old Musk said, adding hearts, stars and rocket emojis in a tweet that highlighted the statement.
Musk has hinted at several possible changes he could bring to Twitter prompting speculation and concern alike.
Here is everything Musk wants to change about Twitter.
Long-form tweets
Earlier this month, Musk tweeted that he would want to introduce longer tweets. There is currently a character limit on how much users can write on each post and Musk says the app has been long overdue for a change in that department.
"My most immediate takeaway from this novella of a thread is that Twitter is *way* overdue for long form tweets!" Musk tweeted on April 15.
An option to edit tweets
On April 1, Twitter teased that it was working on an edit button for users.
Twitter had been working since last year on building an edit option, according to Jay Sullivan, Twitter's head of consumer product.
Sullivan added that the edit option has been "the most requested Twitter feature for many years."
When Musk originally purchased more than 9% of the company the Tesla CEO tweeted out a yes-or-no poll for the edit button, cheekily misspelling the choices as "yse" and "on" – a reference to users' inability to correct typos once tweets are sent. As of Tuesday evening, "yse" was winning with more than 73% of the vote.
Getting rid of Bots
Musk has called malicious bots "the single most annoying problem," on Twitter. Earlier this month he tweeted, "If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!"
One method of removing bots would be to authenticate users, according to Musk.
In a series of tweets earlier this month, Musk said that the company should include an "authentication checkmark" as a feature of its Twitter Blue premium subscription service, which costs $2.99 a month.
Twitter adds a checkmark logo next to a username when the account has been verified "authentic, notable and active."
Musk also suggested Twitter make the authentication checkmarks of premium subscriber accounts different than those granted to official accounts belonging to public figures, for example.
Such a move, Musk said, would "massively expand" the pool of verified user accounts and discourage the proliferation of spam "bot" accounts, making them too expensive to maintain.
Accepting Dogecoin and removing ads
Musk also shared ideas for how Twitter should charge for its subscription membership, saying the fee "should be proportionate to affordability and in local currency," and adding: "Maybe even an option to pay in Doge?" referring to the Dogecoin cryptocurrency.
"And no ads," Musk tweeted. "The power of corporations to dictate policy is greatly enhanced if Twitter depends on advertising money to survive."
Nearly 90% of Twitter’s revenue in 2021 came from advertising.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.