Twitter has been in the news a lot lately, albeit for the wrong reasons. Its stock growth has languished and the platform itself has largely remained the same since its founding in 2006. On April 14, 2022, Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, made an offer to buy Twitter and take the public company private. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission , Musk stated, “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.” As a researcher of social media platforms , I find that Musk’s potential ownership of Twitter and his stated reasons for buying the company raise important issues. Those issues stem from the nature of the social media platform and what sets it apart from others. What makes Twitter unique Twitter occupies a unique niche. Its short chunks of text and threading foster real-time conversations among thousands of people, which
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