When it comes to Elon Musk‘s recent purchase of Twitter, the White House and Joe Biden administration hasn’t had anything to say, so far, according to a report from Politico.
Earlier this year, Biden and Musk briefly traded jabs in June after the latter commented on the state of the economy, the president replied in response via a tweet, “Lots of luck on his trip to the moon”. The next month, Musk wrote on Twitter, “whoever controls the teleprompter is the real President!” a comparison between Ron Burgundy, the protagonist of hit comedy Anchorman and Joe Biden.
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Perhaps the only person who has been taking a stance in the White House at the moment is Staff Secretary Neera Tanden who is quite active on Twitter. She’s spent some time engaging with other users, asking users if they have a preference for a new platform as opposed to Twitter and concerns about people leaving the platform just days after Musk’s acquisition.
While the rest of the world has been mostly apathetic to Twitter’s acquisition and Musk’s ensuing decisions, Democrats seem to be taking a different route, according to the Politico report. While some are considering leaving the platform, others have been discussing the pitfalls of less moderation and fewer checks on misinformation and disinformation.
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But according to the Politico report, progressives working on social media policy and platform building aren’t looking to make a new platform, similar to Donald Trump’s TRUTH Social, any time soon.
What some are considering, is to go after advertisers, as they’re the main draw, especially considering Twitter still draws 90% of its revenue from advertising. Pressuring advertisers and the threat of bad press might just work.
Then again, Musk recently agreed with an idea to separate users based on user-decided content ratings, allowing them to choose what kinds of tweets they want to see. Alternatively, somebody else had suggested the idea of different “modes” on Twitter, similar to videogames. While its too soon to tell how effective Musk’s reign over Twitter will be, only time will tell whether its for the good or bad.