1,
Musk spent 43 billion to buy "American Weibo"
"Fake news is the cancer of our era".
The above sentence comes from the mouth of a rich Chinese.
His deeds are rarely reported in China because he has almost nothing to do with China. He was born and raised in South Africa, studied, worked and started a business in the United States. After he became a rich man, he did not return to China to find his roots and ask for his ancestors.
so it is not worthy of domestic reports.
But he is the richest Chinese in the United States.
His name is Huang Xinxiang , and he studied medicine. Later, he founded a pharmaceutical company and became a rich man. He bought the Los Angeles Times in 2018 and when explaining why he did this, he said it was to solve fake news - "This is the cancer of our time."
Four years later, another American rich man born in South Africa is coming to do the same thing as Huang Xinxiang.
But Huang bought traditional media, while he wanted to buy Internet social media.
He is Musk, and what he wants to buy is the United States " Weibo " - Twitter .
On April 14, 2022, Musk proposed to acquire Twitter for US$43 billion, but was fiercely rejected by Twitter at the beginning.
However, on April 25, Twitter announced that it had accepted Musk's acquisition proposal.
But then on July 8, Musk announced the cancellation of the acquisition proposal.
On October 3, Musk told Twitter that he planned to acquire Twitter at the original offer of the previous agreement.
The twists and turns are not the focus of our discussion. What we want to discuss is Musk's explanation of the purpose of acquiring Twitter.
Musk said in a statement announcing the deal: "Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of the normal operation of the democratic system, and Twitter is a digital speech square where matters that are crucial to the future of mankind can be debated here."
When he explained the acquisition to the Twitter board of directors, he said that Twitter is a "global platform for freedom of speech", but Twitter's existing forms cannot fulfill this "social responsibility". In Musk's view, the current censorship on Twitter has greatly affected "freedom of speech". Especially after his Twitter remarks were "censored".
So Musk showed the strength of the world's richest man and bought it if he had a disagreement. Since he feels that Twitter is not good, he will do it himself.
. Many people say that this is not defending "freedom of speech", but the willful and arrogant behavior of the world's richest man.
Because complete "freedom of speech" does not exist, even on the Internet, some "politically correct" remarks and hierarchical remarks are subject to censorship, let alone a "big-giant" social platform like Twitter.
Someone directly said: "Musk, a social media layman, thinks too simple about "freedom of speech" on the Internet."
, but I don't agree with this view very much.
2,
Musk wants to win this "war"
Musk is indeed a "madman". He is indeed an amateur when managing a social media, but weren't he both laymen before building cars and rockets? It's pretty good now.
Musk acquired Twitter under the banner of "defending freedom of speech", and it is not just the willful behavior of the world's richest man after being banned.
This is a "war" about "public opinion control".
And Musk's determination to win in this "war" has been shown.
Since joining Twitter in 2009, Musk has posted 19,000 tweets and currently has more than 100 million followers, which is one of the few on Twitter.
But Musk has also encountered "censorship" from Twitter many times.
Musk tweeted in 2018 that he was considering privatizing Tesla . The US Securities Regulatory Commission accused Musk of intending to mislead investors, and finally the two sides reached a settlement. Musk must obtain approval from Tesla's lawyers before posting certain tweets, so Musk believed that his freedom of speech was trampled on.
From that time on, Musk wanted to take the initiative and hold the power of "freedom of speech" firmly in his hands.
In January 2021, Twitter banned the then-US President Trump account. A few days later, Musk tweeted that people would be “very dissatisfied with the West Coast high-tech companies as de facto arbitrators of freedom of speech.”
The "West Coast High-Tech Company" here is of course Twitter.
Musk is increasingly expressing his dissatisfaction with the review of Twitter's remarks on Twitter. Many fans below have also begun to "burn up" and leave messages hoping that "Mascar will buy Twitter and re-establish the rules."
If it were someone else, it might have just laughed it off.
But this time it's Musk's turn. Those who have the same financial resources as him are not as strong as his desire to control public opinion, and those who have such strong desire to control public opinion are not as rich as him.
Who is Musk? He built cars, rockets, brain research, and Starlink . He didn't play by the rules. He was the richest man in the world, but he sold all his luxury houses and had no real estate under his name. He lived in a 37-square-meter "container" and occasionally slept at his friend's house. People like
are the most terrifying.
As an entrepreneur, Musk wants "great achievements" like those "great men" in human history.
In human history, no businessman has ever had such ambitions.
Let’s sort out his business ambitions and understand what a huge plan this is.
Musk currently involves electric vehicles, rockets, brain-computer interface , robots, starlinks and high-tech "container" houses, etc.
So many businesses actually revolve around one goal, which is to "colonize Mars".
You see, electric vehicles can be used as transportation tools on Mars , because traditional gasoline vehicles are just a burden on Mars; rockets solve the problem of interstellar transportation; robots solve the problem of improving labor efficiency ; Starlink solves the problem of information transmission, and high-tech "containers" solve the problem of housing; and brain-computer interface requires a larger brain-think to imagine, because if this generation cannot complete Mars colonization, consciousness can be transmitted online, thereby realizing the immortality of consciousness... Many of these new technologies such as
will inevitably conflict with the ethics and legal provisions of contemporary society. In such a situation, Musk can only compromise.
Because although he is rich enough to rival a country and has many fans and admirers, he does not have political power.
Would you say why he didn’t run for the president of the United States?
The first point is because Musk was not born in the United States, but immigrated to the United States. Under U.S. law, only people born in the United States are eligible to run for president. Second, what if you become the president of the United States? The United States is not the president alone. Trump has the final say. If he becomes president, isn’t Twitter banning the account just by saying that he can’t do it?
Therefore, mastering public opinion tools is a good means to gain power.
Public opinion is power.
When Musk can build a public opinion machine according to his own ideas, he can influence the direction of public opinion and have some power that even the US president cannot have.
Musk's background is a businessman, and he knows that this deal is not a loss.
3,
Freedom requires equivalent exchange of
As for the beautiful words he said like "defending freedom of speech", it is just a foolish slogan.
The most useless thing in the world is this slogan. What is "freedom of speech"? The freedom given to you by others is never true freedom. When you want to pursue this kind of freedom, you have to ask yourself what equivalent exchange has been paid.
Musk paid $43 billion for his "freedom of speech". He does promote the creation of a "freedom of speech" Twitter, but what this freedom may really have is himself.
When an ordinary user faces a giant platform, he is always a weak person, and this power gap will become more and more obvious as the platform algorithm iterates and the degree of monopoly increases. When the platform is large enough, ordinary users are unable to refuse to hand over their privacy and rights in exchange for normal use of the platform. There are many examples like
, and everyone has experienced it, so I won’t talk about it.
So Musk is indeed defending freedom of speech, but only himself. He wants to use this freedom to serve his business ambitions.
Freedom requires equivalent exchange, and ordinary people should not expect something that does not belong to them.
What have you paid for freedom? Buy Tesla?
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