A quick forward: this is an analysis of a potential new product using the existing twitter framework and user base as a foundation. This is not a prediction of stock performance, or really anything at all and purely represents my opinions on the current state of social media and the potential for a new kind of competitive service to be introduced. I have no positions. what advice I will give is that if in the future Elon takes twitter private, you have a large amount of capital, and twitter starts to show signs of going where I am showing in this post, you better contact him and beg for a door in.
Elon musk Is a wild crazy man… thing. His motivations are as mysterious as his methods. Though he may be enigmatic, I believe there are clues to suggest his true intentions with twitter. I therefore propose my theory to explain the potential Elon musk claims to be capable of unlocking.
To begin, one must look at the current state of the market surrounding social media platforms and in doing so you may notice a few things.
Social media platforms are extremely associated with an “identity.'' Facebook is for old folks, reddit is for neckbeards and niche fandoms, instagram is for influencers and their fancy lives, and twitter of course, is for the filthy hypocrite, fascist, scum sucking, baby eating, degenerate libs. (you blue blooded democrats are cool don't worry.)
America is the most divided It has been in quite a while. Everywhere you look there are people complaining about something. Whether its covid politics, Ukraine strategic assistance, inflation and the cause, divisive media bias, shit leadership from both parties, the greedy pedophilic corporate elite, the list goes on. Perhaps It was always this way, but the internet, and especially social media has the power to amplify and focus these issues and put them in the forefront of the minds of the general public.
The war over what and how we should define free speech is reaching a climax. There is a propaganda war between the west and the east. Nato vs the Russians and chinese. As a result of this and many other issues, the demand for good information, for good educated opinions that aren't trying to scam you and misinform you into an ideology you don't respect grows by the day. Fears that important information is being repressed by someone or something clash with fears that wild misinformation is spreading like wildfire among the general public. There is now a sufficient market for a platform that enables proper, unfiltered discourse and finally,
Elon musk fucking loves twitter. He uses twitter like a teenager uses crusty socks. His Mindset surrounding twitter and how it should be used has remained consistent for quite a few years now, as evidenced by his many hot takes, and this interview he gave a while back.
Elon musk has stated that he wants to fix twitter and make it a bastion of free speech, but what does he mean by that? Well in order for free speech to function properly as defined by the constitution you must have 3 things. Stupidity, Apathy, and pain. People start out Apathetic until stupidity rears its ugly head. Stupidity causes pain, anger, and the drive to change minds. Apathy therefore, when exposed to stupidity, creates knowledge and experience. That knowledge and experience cures stupidity.
Now normally, this all results in war. One side believes one ideolgy, the other side gets pissed and thinks the apposing side is stupid, thus armies are raised and wars are fought. However, under the laws of the United States as well as most civilized countries, physically harming someone just because you disagree is illegal. The only option you have to fight something you disagree with is to do so with ideas and evidence. A war of Ideas if you will, for example the civil rights movement, the anti war movement during vietnam, and the current “woke vs right” movement of today.
This, by the way, is the definition of philosophy, and philosophy is the backbone of modern human society, as well as the mature form of religion. Both are protected under the constitution. As philosophy evolves and matures, human society evolves and matures with it. It is therefore of utmost importance to ensure that philosophy can thrive as that is the only way for humanity to continue to grow in a positive direction.
Now I hear you ask, “what does this have to do with anything you damn baboon?” well here's the rub. The single biggest problem with social media and perhaps American free speech culture in general is that people want to skip over the “pain” part of the free speech equation. We don't want to hear some idiot talk about vaccine microchips. We don't want to watch the former sitting president babble on about his hands. We aren't interested in things that challenge the echo chamber and so rather than participate in the war of ideas companies like twitter simply ban controversial people off their platform and proclaim the problem solved. In the words of the great Joseph Stalin, “no person no problem” Twitter, as well as many far left/ far right political parties, prefer to take the easy way out, and unfortunately just like how removing the sodium from salt creates a deadly gas, this doesn't allow stupidity the chance to heal through knowledge and experience. Instead it festers and grows stronger and stronger as attention is brought to the controversy and people start playing for the underdog side. Why do they do this? Because as much as people hate the misery of pain and debate, we absolutely ADORE controversy. The media never lets a good tragedy go to waste. School shootings get more clicks than puppy adoptions, and east european political, social, and military tragedy is more interesting then a global pandemic .
So this is the philosophical backbone of the change Elon seems to want to create on twitter. Say What you will about Elons hypocrisy when it comes to criticisms of his companies and his life, he loves the fight. He says as much in his interviews about his views on Twitter, and proves as much with his frequent hot takes.
Now we get to the business side of things. In order to turn twitter into a real money maker while maintaining the promise of free speech, the only way to do it is to take advantage of twitter's greatest strength, which is the thrill of engagement it provides users. It's the public square of the U.S, and perhaps one day the entire world, and has the potential to be THE place everyone goes to see what the biggest problems in the world are, and what we can do about it. In order to take advantage of this, Here is what I would do. I call it the Anti Echo Chamber.
Reform twitter's content algorithm.
Rather than avoid controversy, *embrace it.* You do this by adding a new feature, an alternative to the retweet that I call ***squawk***. This would function like the opposite of the retweet feature, instead of promoting tweets you like, this would promote things you don't like. Sounds insane? Just you wait because it gets good.
Allow tweets and squawks to be filtered by location
Allow users to narrow down the area they wish to view tweets or squawks in. want to know what people are mad about in new york? What people are loving about England right now? What people are pissed about in America? You can narrow down what content you see to location, as precise as your local town or as wide as the whole world and know with just a few clicks what everyones on about.
Install more anti bot systems.
This could be done any number of ways, some creative, some direct. it would likely take time to experiment in order to get right. What is important is that we greatly increase the difficulty of making vast amounts of duplicate fake accounts, and ensure that everyone who participates on twitter has an IDENTITY that they would have great difficulty in changing. This is required in order to self-inforce personal accountability among all users.
Retweets and Squawks MUST include a comment
This would have a minimum character requirement that would potentially be adjusted depending on user engagement. The primary purpose would be to facilitate interesting commentary, either positive or negative depending on if it's a retweet or a squawk, while also defending against bots and mass mob attacks since an algorithm to detect abuses in the system would be easy to set up.
Include a retweet/Squawk ratio system
Keep it hidden or keep it visible, but the purpose is to locate people who actually deserve to be kicked off twitter for illegal activity. For example people who promote and threaten violence, people engaging in blatant illegal activity such as promoting childporn or sex trafficing, the sort of shit that doesn't fly even under free speech absolutionest values. Content that sees a certain retweet to squawk ratio will be flagged for manual review to determine if someone needs to be removed. It's basically a report system except everyone can see who's being reported and everyone is emotionally charged to keep the snowball rolling. With this method, you don't need an algorithm to flag people who need to be removed since anyone who actually deserves it will be essentially mobbed off the platform through a democratic process.
Apply a weight system or adjust the current one.
This would promote tweets based on follower count and retweet/squawk amount. Famous people are more likely to be on the front page, but a nobody still has a chance based on luck, it would be like the youtube algorithm and the reddit upvote system combined.
Start marketing!
Twitter has an identity problem that causes it to be associated exclusively with the far left. It may be expensive, but an extensive marketing campaign centering on free speech absolutism will likely draw many people in, even if many leftists get mad and leave since they now have to put up a fight for what they believe in.
le coup de grâce.
Charge a subscription fee to participate on the platform. This does NOT need to be expensive, a simple 2$ a month charge would likely double twitter's current revenue, and the creativity with the subscription service knows no boundaries. Charge people more for double the characters? Sure. make special meme emojis for premium members? Why not! Give out cash rewards for people who reach a certain amount of followers because they have killer hot takes? Sign me up! Take inspiration from video game microtransactions. The only thing that matters here is that people are engaged with the platform enough to pay a small premium every month. Sure it pushes out people with no credit cards, or debit cards, or bank accounts, or money, but honestly I think being homeless and getting a job just so you can afford to shitpost on twitter is worth it.
Extend to the coin market.
This is where things get hard to predict, but allowing people to bypass any data collection through a twitter built vpn system while allowing them to tweet anyway and pay for the privilege in coin would potentially open up opportunity in countries that are notoriously authoritarian. This unfortunately would only work if twitter gets enough users, but would potentially give twitter a strings free presence in any country that has internet access. All other countries would likely allow twitter presence, perhaps under the condition that some money made off the citizens gets paid to the government, and in return twitter retains complete and total control over the platform. Think of a Twitter/nord vpn combo that provides both services, and can only be paid for in coin. I am unfamiliar with how easy it is to access vpns in countries that censor internet service, but it would be a very interesting project and if done right, would make twitter untouchable from government influence. Web 3 anyone? Starlink anyone? Finally, free speech exported to every country, monopolized for profit!
In summary, The twitter algorithm would function based on these parameters that would see adjustment after reviewing user engagement and membership growth.
- Number of followers
- Number of retweets
- Number of squawks
- A verification of authenticity given depending on retweet/squawk ratio, and follower count.
- Location of both the tweet user, and an average follower location, Except in the case of the vpn service, which would ignore these parameters and focus on the previous ones exclusively. This should in theory account for limited users and followers in countries that do not have the same free speech laws that others do.
- Any current existing parameters that do not contradict the previous ones given.
The standard twitter experience, or as I call it the Anti Echo Chamber, would essentially work like this. Load up twitter, sort by the typical filters, as well as area filters to view tweets near you, and be immediately blasted by whatever the most contentious thing is that people are currently going off on. Maybe it's good news! Maybe somebody you know has cancer and is getting support through retweets! Maybe the town mayor is asking for an opinion on a new policy currently under debate. Maybe people are bickering about local housing prices, or a new roundabout in town and whether roundabouts are the safest way to direct traffic. Maybe Alex Jones said something crazy for the trillienth time and people are freaking the fuck out about it. Maybe legions of Biden lovers are shaming and squawking against the Trumpists about Trump's most recent racial slur he let slip on video in 1979. Maybe bill burr said something hilarious about someone in his squawk and now his squawk is being retweeted as a retweet and people are retweeting a squawk of a retweet of a squawk. This shit could get chaotic and meta fast and the only thing I know for sure is that it would be exciting.
In conclusion, this system would prey on people's sensitive emotions like a vulture preys on a juicy meaty, rotten cow. Clever engagement on any issue would be rewarded with followers. Influencers could rise from absolutely nowhere overnight, gain a massive following, and be canceled and clowned on just as quickly if they aren't careful with how they phrase their ideas, or they could pivot into political or entertainment roles with their newfound following. The more momentum a tweet, retweet or squawk gains, the more exposure it gets. Entire movements could rise and fall like mountains clashing, sparks could fan into flames at a moment's notice. absolutely all of it would guarantee cashflow for twitter, therefore free speech is maintained since there would be direct financial incentive to insure it. Why delete someone off the platform when you can make so much money off them? It's the gold rush situation, but the gold is free speech and twitter would sell the shovels.
Questions and answers.
why has this not been done?
The reason something like this does not exist anywhere is because it is extremely extremely difficult to start up a social media platform. A normal platform needs hundreds of thousands of users to function properly. This is not a normal platform. The issue is that in order for the anti echo chamber system to work, you need as MANY people from as MANY backgrounds and beliefs as you can possibly get. If you only have a few hundred thousand it can't work. If you only have a few million it can't work. You absolutely must have hundreds of millions of users or the system simply falls apart into a toxic hellhole. This is why competitors like truth social or gab will simply never work. The only way to create a functional anti echo chamber is to start out with hundreds of millions of users from the very beginning and luckily twitter is perfect for that. Here is a wikipedia article that dives deeper into what this is and why this type of system is so sensitive. (you need participation from everyone of every belief system.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd
Isn't reddit alot like this?
No. reddit may be the closest thing to an anti echo chamber that exists currently, however while you can find subreddits for anything you want, you have to actually find them. Therefore subreddits become their own echo chamber and there is no system in place to break them apart and expose them to alternative views and beliefs. The upvote downvote system is similar to what I propose, however unlike the upvote downvote system you have to add commentary that elaborates on your reason for upvoting or downvoting, which helps protect against bot abuse and others trying to abuse the system. Interestingly enough, the youtube algorithm has recently been changed to represent this type of system almost better than anything else out there currently. Why? Because they removed the dislike button of all things! This is not evidence, but an example that somewhat portrays what I'm talking about. If you know anything about Elden Ring, you know that the majority consensus is that it's fantastic. However this video that spends almost 2 hours trashing the game design managed to get on trending. In the first few minutes he explains through a joke, what is essentially my argument for why my new twitter algorithm would work. the video is titled Elden Ring, a Shattered Masterpiece.
Won’t trolls gain the spotlight?
This is possible, but more and more unlikely the more people participate on the platform. This is why it's so important to have as many people as possible, from as many ideologies as possible, at the very start. A troll saying “I hate nigs” may get a few squawks, but at the end of the day nobody will pay any attention and the tweet will die in the void. However somebody making claims about faulty pfizer research techniques and linking video evidence will receive a massive amount of exposure through either retweets or squawks, snowballing the exposure, and in turn increasing the likelihood of somebody who actually knows what they are talking about responding in kind with their own research and gaining even more exposure through retweets and squawks combined, propelling the entire debate to twitters front page. What the general public decided on depends entirely on what would essentially be a democratic, albeit emotionally charged debate.
Wouldn't this increase the risk of exposure to misinformation?
Small yes, but BIG no. the thing we all know about the internet is that people fucking LOVE to prove others wrong. Putting someone in their fucking spot with facts, logic, and a snarky comment will get far more exposure then simply posting false info about election fraud with little context. Simply put, if it's actually true, people will notice and kick the can forward for more people to review, retweet, or squawk about. In the words of the great Howard Todd, it just works.
Wouldn’t people get tired of seeing things they don't like and just quit, concentrating the pool of toxicity?
Again, this relies on there being a big enough user base to filter out anything actually dangerous, misleading, and wrong. Ideas and opinions that reach maximum exposure will only do so if there is actually merit and intelligence behind them, with the exception of tweets that reach certain thresholds in the retweet to squawk ratio and are promptly detected, reviewed, and removed. Don't like it? Then fight back! If what you believe in is truly worth it to you, you will have the strength to stand up for it. As Elon Musk says, twitter is a warzone and you better be ready to duke it out with anyone who disagrees with you. On top of that, there is a certain addictiveness associated with scrolling through twitter and hashing it out with people.
Isn't this just the reddit sort by controversy?
Kind of? And boy do you guys love it. The biggest difference is follower count and unique users. People with a lot of followers and people who are famous will be weighted higher in the algorithm for exposure. For example, 2 tweets that say the same thing and receive the same amount of retweets or squawks will be moved up the algorithm differently depending on the amount of followers, and whether the person is verified as authentic either manually or through the algorithm.
What prevents this from becoming the next 4chan?
The reason why 4chan is a disgusting mess and twitter wouldn't given these changes is due to the level of anonymity. yes you can technically hide your identity on twitter but there is really no point and the website is not catering to that market. people go on twitter and gain followers for a multitude of reasons, but primarily the purpose is either to build a following or better connect with an already well established following. Famous people dont go to 4chan, they go to twitter. It's part of the brand. arguments that suggest that free speech platforms can't work ignore the fact that the biggest reason it doesn't currently work on platforms like 4chan is because these platforms escape the responsibility of personal accountability. people WILL think carefully about the things they say if the consequences of going 4chan troll risk jeopardizing their career. There is no evidence to suggest that unfettered free speech and personal accountability and social responsibility can't coexist on the same platform, and I challenge anyone who disagrees to fight me on that.
Won't people just refuse to pay the subscription fee and move off the platform?
In twitter's current state, of course. That's likely why twitter never bothered to try anything like this in the past. It was simply more profitable for advertising to cater to one side.
Things are different now. There are enough users to make a new system actually work, and demand for a product like this exists. if implemented correctly, it could become more marketable and even more addictive. Remember now, the subscription does not need to be much. just 1 or 2 dollars a month, and tiers and features above that. you can get super creative with incentives to subscribe, for example cash rewards for reaching certain follower numbers and criteria.
I admit, much of the profit potential here bets on my belief that the majority of people would rather engage in smart, intelligent debate rather than 4chan trolling. If this is true then that content will naturally float to the top. My evidence is that 4chan is a dying community and podcasts like Joe horseworm DMT Rogan continue to gain millions and millions of views, and continue to grow larger by the day.
I’ll maybe continue to add and answer questions if this post sees the light of day, but other than that my word wall is finished here. See ya.
Elon if you are reading this and I know you are not, I recognize that you have a megamind head and already know all this shit, especially since I literally came up with all this in a few hours while I was at work and you have been planning for the last couple weeks/months. Despite that I still want to run this whole gig I could make so much fucking money for twitter. I would do it for free to just give me food and a roof over my head ill fucking do it.
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